Rainer Deyke wrote:
Leandro Lucarella wrote:
!? It's true that in Python all are references, but there are inmutable
objects in Python, like int, float, strings and tuples. From a practical
POV it exactly the same as value types, if you do:
Immutable reference types are still reference types, and follow the same
rules as other reference types. You just can't modify them. The
assignment operator *always* rebinds a reference, regardless of the
mutability or immutability of any objects involved.
From a user's point of view, an immutable reference is
indistinguishable from a value.
But that's still not half as bad as D, where something simple like 'a =
b; a.x = 5;' can have two completely different meanings depending on
whether 'a' is a reference type or a value type.
True.
And in C++ with assignment overloads and copy constructors, one also has
no clue what a.x=5 does without looking at the source to those functions.
I don't think there's anyway we can pretend to know what semantics a
type has in a language with user-definable types without at least
looking at its declaration.
