What is a function parameter =[] for?

[Ian Kelly]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2015 at 12:00 PM, Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> wrote:
> On 2015-11-24, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Probably the grammar. In other words, it's part of the language's very
>> definition.
>
> Then the definition is wrong. I think "literal" is a word whose meaning is
> generally agreed on, rather than something each language's spec can invent from
> whole cloth for itself. It's not a python term, it's a programming term.

The Python language spec uses the word the same way that other
language specs do. Is it the spec's usage that is wrong, or the common
understanding of it?