experts disagree on "call-by-reference"

[Paul Foley]

On Sun, 30 Jul 2000 19:17:08 -0400, David Goodger wrote:

> on 2000-07-30 18:20, Greg Weeks (weeks at golden.dtc.hp.com) wrote:
>> All of the passages mentioned above could just as well apply to Python.
>> The experts are in explicit disagreement.

> You're comparing apples with oranges. Of course they're "in disagreement",
> because they're describing different things.

You seem to have missed the whole point of the post to which you're
replying, which was that they're _NOT_ describing different things.
Variables in Python work exactly like variables in Lisp, etc.; nihil
sub sole novum.

Greg Weeks has consistently failed to understand that the meaning he
wants to apply to the terms "call by value" and "call by reference"
seems to be somewhat at odds with what everyone else means by those
terms; I'm sure the authors he quoted wouldn't actually disagree at
all if you asked them (i.e., I'm quite confident that each and every
one of them understands what's actually going on)

[long-winded explanation of Lisp-like variable semantics elided]

> Terms like "pass by reference" don't really apply to Python in the
> traditional sense, because we're dealing with a higher order of

Yes, exactly.  "Pass by whatever" has never really applied to
Lisp-like call semantics, Greg Weeks' protestations about "the old way
of speaking" notwithstanding.

-- 
Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong.               -- Blair Houghton

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