how much does Python model my Compsci course?

[Roy Katz]

Hello!

I just finished this semester a course on programming language
implementation (I'm a junior in comp. engineering at the University of
Maryland in College Park, MD). Anyhow, many interesting topics were
covered -- non-deterministic finite automata, DFA's,
context-sensitive grammars, grammar productions, param
passing, function implementation, arrays.  

I'm wondering what amount of this material is applicable to Python
(backgrounder: I've been using Python since the end of '96 in 10th
grade).  Have any of you heard of a 'dope vector'?  What is Python's
internal equivalent? How about a 'central environment table' (as opposed 
to 'activation records')?  Last year I asked here wether Python uses
pass-by-reference;  Then I learned that there are four or five
major types of param passing (the others being
pass-by-{name,result,value,value-result}).  But Python looks as if it has
invented a new form to (perhaps a variation on pass-by-ref) param passing,
based on whether or not the object passed in is mutable (from what I
understand...?)

Which leads me to wonder if what I'm being taught in class is dated.  Dear
G-d, we were using Pascal syntax for learning arrays, functions and
param passing (nevermind that our projects were in perl and java).  I
can't /read/ Pascal anymore. It's too much to type. It's like this
post; so much of the program is keywords that finding the programmer's 
intention is like finding a needle in a hay silo.  But enough about
Pascal.  I suspect that Python has left these concepts (dope vector,
pass-by-*) in the dust, and just went its own path. 

Anyhow,

I appreciate what Python taught me since '96 :)

Roey