Full stack web dev.
Studying FP web development approaches, while helping Mission Bit create paths to programming for underserved public school kids.
Previously @ Gradescope.
Yeah, it's funny to see the Python longhairs having the same argument as everyone else. FWIW I'm with Tim Peters:
"Joe, I think our son might be lost in the woods"
"Don't worry, I have his social security number"
i.e. we care about the object, not the references. This is important too:
in Python, the variables in the formal argument list are bound to the actual argument objects. the objects are shared between caller and callee; there are no "fresh locations" or extra "stores" involved.
So not only are the "values" mutable at a distance, the references aren't even copied.
I think you could argue that Clojure, where by default (a) everything is immutable and (b) values are copied*, is properly call-by-value. I might grudgingly toss C in there too, since pointers are first-class there and the abstraction around structs and arrays is thin.
Others might be CbV, in a narrow sense, but their emphasis on stateful/mutable/referenced things violate the spirit of it. Java at least has some primitives which I imagine need to get copied. Python doesn't even do that...
There's a bit in a book called Theoretical Introduction to Programming that applies here, I think:
... to say that int is integer arithmetic with bounds and overflow conditions is to say that it is not integer arithmetic.
Anyway, I agree with you that the OO languages are not CbR w/r/t objects (though I think they can be in spirit), and IMO you did a good job of explaining the history and the nuance.
i.e. we care about the object, not the references. This is important too:
Yes! This is super cool. Basically from my research I found out that Python, unlike Ruby and JavaScript, doesn't create a new "ref object" in the higher level language but actually directly assigns the reference, like C would.
Anyway, I agree with you that the OO languages are not CbR w/r/t objects (though I think they can be in spirit), and IMO you did a good job of explaining the history and the nuance.
❤❤ I also think you provide very valuable extra information!
I'm not very articulate at the moment but here is a meh response by me 😅 on the Python thang.
Python isn't really an exception, but yes, I understand what you're saying. Looking through the python source code, it seems again that it is mostly what we are trying to say when no reference is copied. The re-assignment in python is actually copying a reference, but indeed, no new memory need be allocated, for that reference -- sorta, because the identifier (name) still needs to live... inside the memory.
So even though Python doesn't "copy" the reference like JavaScript does (create a new JSVal that points to the same object), it does so on a waaaay lower level (point directly to the original same object).
Ugh. It's giving me a slight headache 😅😅😅.
However, there are actually quite a few (mostly older) languages that don't copy at all, which would be those languages that are not call by value/sharing/object :).
The most interesting to me are copy-restore languages or those theoretical ones that only copy on write... a topic for another time.
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Yeah, it's funny to see the Python longhairs having the same argument as everyone else. FWIW I'm with Tim Peters:
i.e. we care about the object, not the references. This is important too:
So not only are the "values" mutable at a distance, the references aren't even copied.
I think you could argue that Clojure, where by default (a) everything is immutable and (b) values are copied*, is properly call-by-value. I might grudgingly toss C in there too, since pointers are first-class there and the abstraction around structs and arrays is thin.
Others might be CbV, in a narrow sense, but their emphasis on stateful/mutable/referenced things violate the spirit of it. Java at least has some primitives which I imagine need to get copied. Python doesn't even do that...
There's a bit in a book called Theoretical Introduction to Programming that applies here, I think:
Anyway, I agree with you that the OO languages are not CbR w/r/t objects (though I think they can be in spirit), and IMO you did a good job of explaining the history and the nuance.
* Clojure uses persistent data structures for collections, so technically those aren't 😑
Yes! This is super cool. Basically from my research I found out that Python, unlike Ruby and JavaScript, doesn't create a new "ref object" in the higher level language but actually directly assigns the reference, like C would.
❤❤ I also think you provide very valuable extra information!
I'm not very articulate at the moment but here is a meh response by me 😅 on the Python thang.
Valentin made a good comment and jmc went into more detail.
Valentin Baca
jmc
Python isn't really an exception, but yes, I understand what you're saying. Looking through the python source code, it seems again that it is mostly what we are trying to say when no reference is copied. The re-assignment in python is actually copying a reference, but indeed, no new memory need be allocated, for that reference -- sorta, because the identifier (name) still needs to live... inside the memory.
So even though Python doesn't "copy" the reference like JavaScript does (create a new JSVal that points to the same object), it does so on a waaaay lower level (point directly to the original same object).
Ugh. It's giving me a slight headache 😅😅😅.
However, there are actually quite a few (mostly older) languages that don't copy at all, which would be those languages that are not call by value/sharing/object :).
The most interesting to me are copy-restore languages or those theoretical ones that only copy on write... a topic for another time.