The “does Python have variables?” debate

[Ethan Furman]

On 05/08/2014 05:41 AM, Roy Smith wrote:
> In article <mailman.9742.1399477705.18130.python-list at python.org>,
>   Jerry Hill <malaclypse2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> thinking of python variables as having two parts -- names and values
>> -- really can help people who are struggling to learn the language.
>
> There's many levels of learning, and we see them all on this list.
>
> For people who are just learning programming, and are learning Python as
> their first language, we need to keep things simple.  These are the
> people who are still struggling to understand basic concepts such as
> algorithms, loops, and the most fundamental data structures.  For those
> people, talking about variables as a container to hold a value is the
> right level of abstraction.

-1

There is nothing wrong with simplifying concepts for newbies, but use one that fits the language.  There is nothing 
difficult with either the sticky note analogy or the pieces of paper and a string analogy.

Teaching someone that Python variables are containers is a massive fail.


> OK, so that takes care of newbies.  There's another whole class of
> people who learn Python.  These are the people who have been doing this
> for a long time.

There's also the whole class of programmers who only know one language, or only a small handful of related languages 
that all pretty much operate the same as far as variables are concerned.  The simple analogies is also helpful for them.

--
~Ethan~