why won't slicing lists raise IndexError?

[Rick Johnson]

Python wrote:

[...]

> THIS IS FALSE.  CALLING A FUNCTION

What *FUNCTION*?

You think you can just slap a function-y looking symbol
willy-nilly in the middle of a chunk of code and then have
it "magically" transform into a python function object?

    >>> do_without_item()

    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<pyshell#0>", line 1, in <module>
        do_without_item()
    NameError: name 'do_without_item' is not defined
    >>> foo()

    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<pyshell#1>", line 1, in <module>
        foo()
    NameError: name 'foo' is not defined
    >>> bar()

    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
        bar()
    NameError: name 'bar' is not defined

if "do_without_item()" had been defined, then you could call
it a function. But until you do, it's just a NameError.