Terminology: "reference" versus "pointer"

Random832 random832 at fastmail.com
Mon Sep 14 13:34:53 EDT 2015


On Mon, Sep 14, 2015, at 13:03, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Sep 2015 01:10 am, Random832 wrote:
> > That's not true in CPython. In fact, the range object in python contains
> > *four* reference boxes - one more for length.
> 
> I really don't see why any of this is relevant to the business being
> discussed.

When you're drawing this sort of diagram then what references are held
by an object are more important than what interfaces it implements.

Personally I think it's a bit silly to insist on a diagram model where a
box with an arrow in it pointing at an int object can't be represented
by a box with an integer in it (where 'int' is any immutable type -
string, tuple, even range), but people don't like boxes with integers in
them for some reason.



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