Python's garbage collection was Re: Python reliability

[Fredrik Lundh]

Tom Anderson wrote:

> In both smalltalk and python, every single variable contains a reference
> to an object - there isn't the object/primitive distinction you find in
> less advanced languages like java.
>
> Except that in smalltalk, this isn't true: in ST, every variable *appears*
> to contain a reference to an object, but implementations may not actually
> work like that.

Python implementations don't have to work that way either.  Please don't
confuse "the Python language" with "the CPython implementation" and with
other implementations (existing as well as hypothetical).

(fwiw, switching to tagging in CPython would break most about everything.
might as well start over, and nobody's likely to do that to speed up integer-
dominated programs a little...)

</F>