Official definition of call-by-value (Re: Finding the instance reference...)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:32:25 +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

>> Rather it seems to me that the essence of the idea they had in mind is
>> that call-by-value is equivalent to assignment.
> 
> You've just *assumed* that assignment in Algol 60 doesn't involving
> copying. Based on the very little I know about Algol, I think that is a
> very unsafe assumption. I know significantly more about Pascal, and in
> Pascal, assignment *is* copying.
> 
> (I wait now with bated breath for somebody to point out some Python
> implementation or feature where assignment doesn't make a copy...)

Ah crap, I meant *Pascal*. Python of course doesn't copy objects when you 
assign them.


-- 
Steven