Terminology: "reference" versus "pointer"

[Akira Li]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 11:22 AM, Akira Li <4kir4.1i at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> writes:
>>
>>> On Mon, 14 Sep 2015 09:17 am, Akira Li wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't see why the model that can't describe range(1) in Python 3
>>>> pretends to be complete.
>>>
>>>
>>> Please explain.
>>>
>>> range(1) returns a range instance. What is hard about that?
>>
>> Look at the last example:
>> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general/782626/focus=782704
>
> Still not sure what the problem is. As per Python's object model, the
> lists contain references to range objects. a contains two references
> to the same range object, b contains references to each of two
> distinct range objects. What of it?

For me, there is no problem. "parcel tags" [1], "box and arrows"[2] are
all the same (note: "labelled box"[3] that may contain an object is a
different model).

The talk about being "complete" is caused by the following quote from
Random832 message [4]:

  If the "parcel tags" model can't show it, then the "parcel tag" model
  clearly is not a correct and complete depiction of how Python actually
  works.

The purpose of the examples in [5] is to demonstate that neither models
are "complete" i.e., there is (obviously) behavior of a Python program
that they can't describe.

[1]
http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/handout.html#python-has-names
[2]
http://www.pythontutor.com/visualize.html#code=a0+%3D+a1+%3D+%5B1,+2%5D%0Ab0+%3D+%5B1,+2%5D%0Ab1+%3D+%5B1,+2%5D%0Aa+%3D+%5Ba0,+a1%5D%0Ab+%3D+%5Bb0,+b1%5D%0Adel+a0,+a1,+b0,+b1%0A&mode=display&origin=opt-frontend.js&cumulative=false&heapPrimitives=false&textReferences=false&py=3&rawInputLstJSON=%5B%5D&curInstr=6
[3]
http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/handout.html#other-languages-have-variables
[4]
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general/782626/focus=782645
[5]
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general/782626/focus=782704