Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> writes: > On Fri, 5 Jun 2015 04:17 am, Alain Ketterlin wrote: > >> Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> writes: >> >> [...] >>> But you still find a few people here and there who have been exposed to >>> Java foolishness, and will argue that Python is "pass by value, where the >>> value is an implementation dependent reference to the thing that you >>> thought was the value". >> >> I find this clear and concise. Can you exhibit an example that would not >> match this description? >> >>> In other words, according to this Java philosophy, following `x = 23`, >>> the value of x is not 23 like any sane person would expect, but some >>> invisible and unknown, and unknowable, reference to 23. >> >> No, Java doesn't work like that for primitive types (assuming that by >> "Java" you mean the language and execution environment defined in >> reference documents). > > Perhaps the fact that I used Python syntax was too ambiguous <wink> but I > was talking about Python. However, the same applies to Java, if you > substitute an object for the primitive value: > > Integer x = new Integer(23); > > According to the Java philosophy, the value of x is not the object > Integer(23) like any sane person would expect,
Yes, clear (except for sanity). > but some invisible and unknown reference to that object. I think Python does exactly this (Grant Edwards has a good explanation of it els ethread). At least, that is how I understand it, and that is how I teach it, and I have never met a single case where it failed to describe and explain the actual behavior of the program. That's why I was asking for an example to motivate your claim on sanity. -- Alain. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
