passing by refference

[Mel Wilson]

In article <873cjfbrxd.fsf at charter.net>,
Doug Quale <quale1 at charter.net> wrote:
>Tim Peters <tim.one at comcast.net> writes:
>>  [ ... ]                                                         Even so, in
>> no case does it [call-by-value] have enough explanatory power to answer most practical
>> questions about the semantics of calls in Python.
>
>What practical question can it not explain about calls in Python?  It
>very easily explains the example you gave before.

It can't explain how a function call

        a_function (a_thing)

can have the semantics of call-by-value if a_thing is immutable,
but call-by-reference if a_thing is mutable.

        Regards.        Mel.