A question on modification of a list via a function invocation

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:17 PM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well ⅓ the point of pointers may be printing them out — which even in a language
> with 1st class pointers like C is rarely done/needed

But still the useless part. You don't actually *achieve* anything by
printing out the pointer.

> Another ⅓ is dereferencing, pointer-arithmetic etc... the various manifestations
> of 1st-class pointers

This is the part that matters.

> And the third ⅓ is to provide explanations to people asking authentic questions
> [like the OP of this thread]

Only questions that actually relate to one of the previous parts.

> Sure you can say with Steven that this can be 'explained' by saying an object
> can be in two places at one time.
> Others would then say 'Humpty-dumpty!' since you have removed the most basic
> intuition of objects and you are in effect saying that a python object
> means what you ordain it means without further ado/explanation
>
> Since you believe a reference-less dictionary can be a model for such explanations,
> why not provide that?

A piece of paper works just fine. However, it's hard to use that
method of explanation in an email.

ChrisA