Explanation of list reference

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly at gmail.com>:

> On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 9:29 AM, Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> wrote:
>> Thus "x and y are identical" *means* "x is y" and nothing else.
>
> This notion of identity sounds useless, and if that is the way you
> prefer to understand it then you can safely ignore that it exists. I
> think that most users though inherently understand the concept of
> objects being distinct or identical and see the value in being able to
> test for this.

It is not useless to identify your fundamental definitions and axioms
instead of resorting to circular reasoning.

The original question was how a beginning programmer could "get" lists.
We very quickly descended into the murky waters of "objects" of an
underlying machine and CPython's way of implementing things. I was
wondering if there was a way to "get" integers, lists, references etc
without hauling the poor student under the keel.

In a word, could Python be your first programming language?


Marko