[triMichael]

I think I can answer this one because it is one of my gripes of Python. The problem isn't that it doesn't copy, rather it is that the = assignment operator specifically doesn't copy.

If you create a list "list1", set "list2 = list1", and change list1, both of the lists change. When I learned Python, this was a major source of confusion for me. Eventually I learned that in Python, instead of nothing being a pointer as it first appears, it is actually that everything is a pointer. On the other hand, while the same things occur in C++, the assignment operator does a shallow copy and anytime you are doing a pointer copy it is explicit.

[notdonspaulding]

I don't remember when in my Python career I learned about names vs. values, but it finally clicked for me that I'm predominately just binding a value to a name with the = assignment. Now everything I read has become very easy to reason about and understand.

Ned Batchelder is a good resource for learning many things about python, and this talk he gave at Pycon some years ago is no exception:

https://nedbatchelder.com/text/names1.html

[EricE]

Wow, there's a name I haven't thought about in a long time. I met him several times in the context of Lotus/Iris. Super nice and obviously wicked smart guy. Always approachable and eager to help, too. I'm not surprised at his current vocation.

What a small world...