Label-Value (was: Re: Inheriting the @ sign from Ruby)

[Darren New]

Alex Martelli wrote:
> > Well, X is a variable, and you can already change the value in X.
> 
> This _may_ harbor a slight misconception, coming from other languages,
> that (in more complex cases) may interfere with optimal understanding
> of Python.
> 
> There is no value *IN* x.
> 
> A variable *REFERS TO* 'a value' (aka 'an object').

Well, I was being sloppy, but I did my graduate degree with Smalltalk so I'm
used to the model. I appriciate the attempt to clarify, tho. :-) The value
*in* X is the reference to the object, which is why asking whether it's
pass-by-value or pass-by-reference is confusing; it's
pass-reference-by-value.

My point was, you don't *want* mutable integers. You want something else
that holds a pointer/reference/etc to an integer where you can change the
pointer. And X is such a thing already. The only problem is that you can't
share X, but that's a different problem, regardless of whether it's an
integer or a list. But if you want a single copy of a mutable integer, you
can implement it with a variable. 

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