What is a function parameter =[] for?

[Antoon Pardon]

Op 25-11-15 om 01:55 schreef Laura Creighton:
> In a message of Wed, 25 Nov 2015 11:39:54 +1100, "Steven D'Aprano" writes:
>> I'm not sure what value [ha, see what I did there?!] there is in inventing
>> two new words for things that we already have standard terms for.
> Done correctly, you can get clarity.
>
>> "Referent" is just a funny way of saying "object", and "evalue" is just a
>> misspelling of "value".
> If I had a time machine, I would go back to early days of Python and
> ban the use of the term 'assignment' and 'value' both.  I would insist
> that the term 'binding' be used instead, though if you want to use the
> verb refer, to be synonymous with bind, well, I think that would work.
> (If not, next trip with the time machine, I ban that one as well.)
> Then you make it perfectly clear that what are bound are _objects_
> not values (or evalues).  The object has an evalue, but it is the
> object that is bound.

Not far enough back. Since there are older languages with the same
assignment semantics as python, you should at least go so far.
Otherwise you would get the argument why one shouldn't use the
word assignment in python, while other languages use it for the
same kind of thing.

-- 
Antoon.