Difference in Python and Ruby interactive shells

[Sybren Stuvel]

Lou Pecora enlightened us with:
> Impressive, but YIKES, there ought to be a simpler way to do this.
> I think during the development phase editing and reloading would be
> very common and you'd want everything updated.

I hardly ever reload stuff manually during development. I write a
script, and execute it. The few times I use reload() it's no big deal
to do x = B().

> So why is it done the other way, the reference stays the same?  Is
> that useful?

It's predictable. Variables point to one and the same thing, unless
you manipulate them directly.

> Maybe time for a 'switch' to set in Python to choose which behavior
> you want.

That wouldn't be pythonic. People would start using that switch in
their programs too, causing a single command to act differently in
each program.

Sybren
-- 
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? 
                                             Frank Zappa