anything like C++ references?

[Stephen Horne]

On 14 Jul 2003 07:56:40 +0200, martin at v.loewis.de (Martin v. Löwis)
wrote:

>Stephen Horne <intentionally at blank.co.uk> writes:
>
>> Funny thing. When I use algebra, the variables I define don't end up
>> referring to different values, functions or whatever unless I
>> explicitly redefine them. When I write a definition on one piece of
>> paper, the things I wrote earlier on another sheet don't change.
>
>That, typically, is because you don't have any mutating operations in
>your formulae. All functions you use are side-effect-free. If you
>translated the sheets of paper literally into Python, the formulae
>would work the way you expect them to work.

Funny. Algorithms in mathematics have been around much longer than
Python or even electronic computers.