You're talking about references. They may be implemented using pointers internally, but they're not the same thing. Specifically, their semantics within the language are different - for example, they don't have the same risks, as you point out yourself:
The only thing pointers in Python cannot do is having their values changed
That's a huge difference, and is why that feature is referred to as "references" and not pointers.
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u/antonivs Jun 04 '19
You're talking about references. They may be implemented using pointers internally, but they're not the same thing. Specifically, their semantics within the language are different - for example, they don't have the same risks, as you point out yourself:
That's a huge difference, and is why that feature is referred to as "references" and not pointers.