Default parameters

[Terry Reedy]

"Stian Søiland" <stain at stud.ntnu.no> wrote in
message
news:slrnbtvte6.tnk.stain at ozelot.stud.ntnu.no...
> When is this issue going to be resolved? Enough
newbie-pythoners have
> made this mistake now.

I am puzzled as to why.  When I learned Python, I
read something to the effect that default value
expressions are evaluated at definition time.  I
understood that the resulting objects were saved
for later use (parameter binding) when needed (as
default for value not given).  I believed this and
that was that.

> Why not evaluate the parameter lists at calltime
instead of definition
> time?

Run time code belongs in the body of the function
and the corresponding byte code in the code
object.  To me anyway.

Terry J. Reedy