anything like C++ references?

[Donn Cave]

Quoth Stephen Horne <intentionally at blank.co.uk>:
...
| One way or the other, Python is currently choosing not to respect the
| computer science definition of those terms. It may have historic and
| backward-compatability reasons, but that does not change the facts.
| This deviation from computer science definitions, whatever the excuse,
| is arbitrary, confusing and error prone. That is my problem.

Well, there you have it - it does seem to be your problem.  If we
were talking about a practical problem, we might be able to resolve
it with a few lines of code or an explanation of what really happens
when the code in question runs.  But in this case, we all seem to
know perfectly well what happens, and how to write the code we need.

Python's system works.  It's simple, practical and reasonably elegant.
If it doesn't work for you for some practical reason, I'd be surprised.
If you object to it on principle for some reason related to computer
science definitions, that really is your problem.  I do suspect that
it would be also be due to some confusion on your part about either
how Python actually works, or what these computer science definitions
really say and how consistent and unambiguous they are, but from prior
experience with this type of thing I think it would be a mistake to
try to pursue it further here.  It's computer science's job to describe
how Python works, not Python's job to match up with their terminology.
If you're one of those computer scientists, (or if you're not) you're
welcome to offer your interpretation.

	Donn Cave, donn at drizzle.com