Variables

[Robert Kern]

Richard Blackwood wrote:
> To All:
> 
>    Folks, I need your help. I have a friend who claims that if I write:
> 
> foo = 5
> 
> then foo is NOT a variable, necessarily. If you guys can define for me 
> what a variable is and what qualifications you have to back you, I can 
> pass this along to, hopefully, convince him that foo is indeed a variable.

None of us can do that unless you tell us what he thinks the word 
"variable" means. The terminology is a bit fluid. I suspect that your 
friend applying a somewhat restricted notion of "variable" that 
coincides with the behavior of variables in some other language.

-- 
Robert Kern
rkern at ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
  Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
   -- Richard Harter