AssignmentCopiesObject

Correction

Here is what's right.

Variable assignment copies the reference to the object (“identity” of the object) rather than creating a copy of the object and referencing the new copy. For example:

table_tennis = Sport()
ping_pong = table_tennis

The first line of the above code creates a Sport object and stores the reference to that object in variable table_tennis. The second line copies the reference that is stored in table_tennis into variable ping_pong. At the end of this code, there still is only a single Sport object. And there are two variables, table_tennis and ping_pong, that both refer to that same object.

Indeed, calling id, that returns the “identity” of the object referred to by a variable, on both table_tennis and ping_pong shows the same value.

Value

How can you build on this misconception?

Read through Python’s tutorial on Classes to learn more.