[Guido]
> ...
> This particular form of breakage was a common error reported on c.l.py
> and to help at python.org until we added UnboundLocalError to make the
> diagnostic cleaner.
It was indeed, and adding UnboundLocalError did cut the number of questions.
> Maybe that's all that's needed;
It's hard to know what could really help more. If Greg Wilson is still
running newcomer experiments, I'd like to see what newcomers have to say
about this:
x = 2
def f():
print x # A
x = 3
f()
print x # B
A: What do you think should happen when the print at A executes?
B: " " " " " " " " " " B " ?
What I suspect, but don't know, is that a majority of newcomers who expect A
to print 2 *also* expect B to print 3. That is, that they're thinking x is
a global variable, and have no conception of local variables in mind.
This is actually what happens in Icon, which also lacks declarations (in the
same sense Python lacks them: it doesn't lack them <wink>). The difference
is that all variables are global by default in Icon, and you need to
explicitly say "local x" if you want a local var instead. That's
error-prone for sure, by not quite as much so as Perl (where x is also
global by default, but "local $x" sucks you into dynamic scoping; it does
not in Icon).
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