On Sunday, June 30, 2013 12:21:35 AM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Sat, 29 Jun 2013 19:02:01 +0200, Antoon Pardon wrote: > > We might as well say that C doesn't have variables, it has names > > pointing to memory locations or value containers or something like that. > > > > AFAICS there is no reason why "variable" wouldn't be appropiate for > > python names as opposed to C names. > > You are absolutely correct in principle. But in practice, there are ten > bazillion C, Pascal, COBOL, and BASIC programmers who understand the word > "variable" to mean a named memory location, for every Smalltalk or Lisp > programmer who understands a "variable" as a name binding. So it's pure > weight of numbers thing.
I note that the 10 bazillion C… programmers take precedence over 10 centuries of mathematics. I wonder if you are familiar with Weizenbaum -- early doyen of AI. Here is a conversation whose first few paras are relevant http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html On a more technical note... that imperative programming is a bad idea is one of the harder-to-learn lessons for computer scientists http://blog.languager.org/2012/11/imperative-programming-lessons-not.html -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list