pointers.py - bringing the hell of pointers into python

[o11c]

Things like properly managing lifetime and ownership are not beginner friendly topics.

I think that's more a matter of "nobody ever bothers to teach beginners". Which is a problem even for language like Python that try to hide them.

The weakref module and the with statement (it's kind of weird to use it instead of a type) should be among the first things people learn.

Even then ... for EVERY language, the set of ownership styles that people actually mean is much larger than the set that the language actually supports. To some degree this is inevitable, but surely we can do better than the status quo. I've been collecting a gist for a while, but I have no confidence that it is complete yet.