Ned Batchelder <n...@nedbatchelder.com>: > Why is "variable" sacrosanct and can only be used to describe C > semantics, but we're OK reusing class, int, and function?
The Python language specification calls them variables; the terminology discussion should end there. The complaint against variables seems to hinge on the fact that Python variables are not first-class objects. A manifestation of that is that you can't pass variables by reference to functions. Actually, while Python variables are not first-class objects, one could see them as dictionary-key pairs. So you can even pass them by reference by passing the dictionary and the key. Then the problem is lists. You can't represent a list element as a dictionary-key pair. Or can you? A list can be viewed as a "dictionary" whose key is an integer. Thus, the same pass-by-reference technique would work for lists as well. Marko -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
