function pointer

[Gerhard Häring]

James J. Besemer wrote in comp.lang.python:
> Gerhard Häring wrote:
> 
>>Broken quoting - yuck! Your newsreader is broken. Please repair it (using
>>third party software) or make Usenet a better place by throwing away that
>>crapware.
>>
> 
> I believe this error occured when the line was wrapped by the
> python-list mailer, not necessarily the submitter's newsreader or
> email program.

No, it's one of these Outlook Express bugs that are known for years at
Microsoft, but never got fixed. It happens when text of the referenced
message gets quoted and Outlook Express does its wrapping of text to
the set width later. It's most annoying to those who have to read that
broken quoting style. There are other bugs that are known equally
long, but at least they don't annoy anyone besides those that deserve
it, like:

begin  loveletterforyou.vbs
hahaha
end

No matter where OE or Outlook find this in a message, they interpret
it as an attachment, ignoring the rest of the message. This has also
been known for years, but instead of just fixing their email parsing,
they wrote a laughable MSDN article that recommends to not use
"begin  " in messages.

>>If we want to keep the terminology right, Python doesn't have variables. It
>>has names and values. 
> 
> The fact that The Tutorial and other Python doc uses the term "variable" 
> makes it confusing for newcomers.

Sorry, I probably was too harsh about this. It's just that using the
terms 'name' and 'value' instead of variable made it a lot simpler for
me to understand the concepts of the Python data model. In fact, I
think I got them from the Python Language Reference, which explains
the Python data model using the terms:

- objects, values and types
- identifiers (names)

http://www.python.org/doc/current/ref/objects.html
http://www.python.org/doc/current/ref/atom-identifiers.html

The reason why I objected to the term variable was that (at least for
me) it has the connotation of strong typing, where a variable can only
hold values or references to objects of (subclasses of) the declard
type. Dismissing the use of 'variable' to describe Python behaviour
was premature, though. It certainly has its uses, it's just that it is
IMO less accurate than the terms from the Python Language Reference.

-- Gerhard