Terminology: "reference" versus "pointer"

[Akira Li]

Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> writes:
...
> Why can't it describe range(1)? A range object in my model would include
> the start, stop, and step; _not_ the contents of what you would get by
> iterating over it; since that's not part of the physical structure of
> the object, but the consequences of calling methods on it.

start, stop, step attributes (corresponding Python ints) may not exist
("the objects we've talking about have never been created") until you
request them explicitly.

I've mentioned it in another message but to be clear, I consider "parcel
tags" [1] and "box and arrows" [2] (boxes are always empty, they only
point to objects) models to be the same and different from "labelled
box" [3] model (boxes contain objects).

[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