Python handles globals badly.

[Mark Lawrence]

On 12/09/2015 01:11, random832 at fastmail.us wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2015, at 20:01, Michael Torrie wrote:
>> The secret to understanding the global keyword is to understand how
>> Python namespaces work.  The statement "a=5" does not assign a 5 to the
>> box called "a."  Rather it binds the name "a" to the "5" object, which
>> is immutable and called into existence by the interpreter
>> implementation.
>
> In other words, it assigns a pointer to the "5" object [otherwise known
> as "a 5"] to the box called "a". (And increments its reference count, if
> you care about how the CPython garbage collector works)
>

If everything in Python is an object, how can it assign a pointer? 
Especially how do Jython and IronPython assign pointers?

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence