What is a function parameter =[] for?

[Antoon Pardon]

Op 24-11-15 om 15:34 schreef Chris Angelico:
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 1:24 AM, Antoon Pardon
> <antoon.pardon at rece.vub.ac.be> wrote:
>>> Start thinking of it as a constructor call rather than a literal, and
>>> you'll get past most of the confusion.
>>
>> That doesn't change the fact it does look like a literal and not like
>> a constructor.
> 
> Then explain how this is a literal:
> 
> squares = [x*x for x in range(int(input("How far? ")))]
> 
> Or even a simple example like this:
> 
> coords = (randrange(10), randrange(10))
> 
> Neither of them is a literal, even though one of them isn't even
> constructing a list. Tuples may be constant, but they still don't have
> a literal form. (Constant folding can make them function the same way
> literals do, though. If a tuple is constructed of nothing but
> immutable constants - including an empty tuple - then CPython will
> generally create a constant for the whole tuple and use that, rather
> than manually constructing one every time. But the same is true of
> other expressions involving nothing but constants.)
> 
> So if it (in your opinion) looks like a literal but isn't one, whose
> fault is it? Yours or the language's? Not a rhetorical question.
> 
> ChrisA
>