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5 Python Concepts That Are Misunderstood by Beginners

Python is easy — but it can still be tricky when you are starting out

Fabio Veronese
Better Programming
6 min readApr 23, 2021
Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

Python is great for mid-level and experienced programmers, and also ideal for computer engineers. But if you have just learned to program or perhaps have no academic background there may be a few tricky things with no intuitive explanation.

TL;DR: Python is a high-level interpreted language. Many lower-level gauges and knobs are hidden — by design. Not knowing what happens under the hood will lead to misunderstanding and to learning the wrong lessons.

1. Assignment

The assignment is when a variable is given a value. There are several aspects to be taken into account when analyzing assignment. Being a variable a space in memory whose content represents its value, in reality, the assignment may be one of several operations.

In the case of a literal, what happens is that the value on the right of the equal sign is given to the variable on the left.

In other cases, there are great differences between Python and other programming languages. The assignment between two variables of a base type represents a copy of the value. Thus the values of strings, ints, floats, booleans, and few other types are copied from…

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Fabio Veronese
Fabio Veronese

Written by Fabio Veronese

Team Leader, Software Engineer, Bioengineering MSc and Information Engineering PhD. Former researcher, observing reality and imagining future.

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