On 6/3/2017 12:38 PM, Thomas Jollans wrote: >> I'd like to suggest an explanation of what a sequence is >> that doesn't use the word 'object' because an object has >> a specific meaning in Python. >> >> Am I on the right track here? > > No, strings don't internally store the characters as objects, and yes, > the slicing operation creates objects. However, strings *are* sequences, > sequences *are* ordered collections of objects.
I don't see how both can be true. "Object" has a clear meaning in Python, and the contents of a sequence don't meet the requirements, as I understand them. If there were some way of measuring the number of objects in a program, then it would be easy to prove (or disprove) my hypothesis. In other words this program a = "abc" would have the same number of objects as this program a = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwzyz" > The sentence "A sequence is an ordered collection of objects" means that > a sequence has (ordered) elements, you can access these elements, and > when you do that, you will get an object (seeing as everything is an > object). The distinction between an "object" and "element" is key here. (This might be seen as pedantic, but I think it's important to be clear, especially in a book intended for beginners, as I am. > Hope this helps. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm somebody who reads technical books *very* carefully so the distinction between objects and elements is important to me. Cordially, Jon Forrest -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
