Explaining names vs variables in Python

[Mark Lawrence]

On 03/03/2016 02:05, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 08:49 am, Mark Lawrence wrote:
>
>> On 02/03/2016 17:23, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>> On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 01:11 am, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>>>
>>>> What is missing is the rules that are obeyed by the "is" operator.
>>>
>>> I think what is actually missing is some common bloody sense. The Python
>>> docs are written in English, and don't define *hundreds*, possible
>>> *thousands* of words because they are using their normal English meaning.
>>>
>>> The docs for `is` say:
>>>
>>> 6.10.3. Identity comparisons
>>>
>>> The operators is and is not test for object identity: x is y is true if
>>> and only if x and y are the same object. x is not y yields the inverse
>>> truth value.
>>>
>>> https://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html#is-not
>>>
>>> In this case, "same object" carries the normal English meaning of "same"
>>> and the normal computer science meaning of "object" in the sense of
>>> "Object Oriented Programming". There's no mystery here, no circular
>>> definition.
>>>
>>
>> Are we discussing UK (highly generalised), Geordie, Glaswegian, US,
>> Canadian, South African, Australian, New Zealand, or some other form of
>> English?
>
> To the best of my knowledge, `is` has the same meaning in all variants of
> English (although there are sometimes differences in grammatical form,
> e.g. "this be that" versus "this is that"). It is a very old word, and such
> old words tend to have astonishingly stable semantics and irregular
> spelling.
>
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/is#English
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/be#English
>

That's all right then.

Perhaps we can now get back to the OP's question and not some bloody 
stupid philosophical discussion.

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

Mark Lawrence