About the implementation of del in Python 3

[Chris Angelico]

On Fri, Jul 7, 2017 at 7:15 PM, Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> wrote:
> Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com>:
>
>> On Fri, Jul 7, 2017 at 6:43 PM, Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> wrote:
>>> Python's integer object 0 might be equated with the (mathematical)
>>> natural number 18974387634. Python code would have no way of
>>> introspecting that natural number.
>>>
>>> The execution model would determine what properties object 18974387634
>>> would have.
>>
>> Then what's the point of that number? If you can't see it from Python
>> code, it's not part of the language semantics.
>
> Excellent question!!!
>
> In fact, it is a very frustrating question. You can only define the
> semantics of Python (in this case) by providing an *arbitrary* mapping
> to an imaginary abstract machine. There's no way to define the objective
> abstraction.

So aside from an artificial sense of purity, what's the point in
defining object identity *at all*? Why invent an arbitrary number that
you can't even see?

ChrisA