On 9/30/13 6:37 PM, Ben Finney wrote:
Ethan Furman <et...@stoneleaf.us> writes:
From [Ned Batchelder]'s blog:
Names are Python's variables: they refer to values, and
those values can change (vary) over the course of your
program.
This is partially incorrect. If the value referred to by the name is
immutable, then it cannot change; perhaps you meant to say that which
object the name points to can vary over time?
I agree. Names are not Python's variables.
If anything in Python is a “variable” as generally understood, it is not
a name. It is a *binding*, from a reference (a name, or some other
reference like a list item) to a value.
It is the binding which can change over the course of the program, so
that is the variable.
True, but no one calls the binding the variable. Here is a program:
x = 4
Every one of us is perfectly comfortable talking about the variable x.
Don't get hung up on implementation pedantry. The name x here refers to
4. Later it could refer to "four". The value associated with the name
x changed. x is a variable.
--Ned.
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