Modifying Class Object

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:11:06 -0800, Steve Howell wrote:

> For a suitably wide definition of pointers CPython does indeed have
> pointers, and your example is only a weaker case of that truth.  There
> is no reductio adsurbum.  If I argued that CPython had curly braced
> syntax that would be absurd, since it is so concretely wrong. Pointers
> are a more abstact concept.

I would argue that your examples are equivalent.

The suitably wide definition of pointers that allows you to argue that 
Python has pointers is an implementation detail, just as the 
implementation detail that the Python tokenizer uses INDENT and DEDENT 
tokens. An INDENT token is just another way of spelling { and DEDENT is 
just another way of spelling }, so therefore Python has curly bracket 
syntax.

Do I believe this argument is valid? No, of course not, I think it does 
so much violence to the concepts of curly brackets and syntax as to be 
absurd. Just as I think the only way to justify claiming that Python has 
pointers is to do so much violence to the concept of pointer and to 
Python's object model as to also be absurd.

That's not to say that the general concept of references (as in "to refer 
to") isn't valuable when discussing Python. If you want to say that 
(e.g.) following 

x = 1

the name "x" refers to (or even points to!) the object 1, my objections 
will be mild or non-existent. In that sense, it's probably impossible to 
program without some sort of "references": the computer manipulates 
variables or objects directly, while we manipulate characters in source 
code. The only way to write a program is to use some abstract thing (a 
name, an offset, whatever) that refers, in some fashion, to a collection 
of bits in the computer's memory. But to go from that to the idea that 
(say) x is a pointer does so much violence to the concept of pointer and 
has so much room for confusion that it is actively harmful.



-- 
Steven