I agree if you're starting with a blank slate. If someone asks "How does Python handle arguments", then you can just omit any mention of call-by-value until they understand the concept, and have total accuracy the whole time.
But if they come to you with "Is Python call-by-value or -reference?", then for the sake of getting them to break away from those contexts, I think your best bet is to say "neither", which is technically-but-not-practically slightly inaccurate.
You could try saying "It's technically call-by-value but you seriously need to forget everything about call-by-value in this context until I explain it to you," but depending on how their mind works, they may be looking for the connection to call-by-value the whole time you explain it (certainly that's what my mind would do if it were explained that way). And that's just a distraction.
So as long as you tell them at the end, "OK, so technically I lied earlier; this is call-by-value, but that's not how it's understood conceptually", I think the marginally inaccurate route is better.
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I agree if you're starting with a blank slate. If someone asks "How does Python handle arguments", then you can just omit any mention of call-by-value until they understand the concept, and have total accuracy the whole time.
But if they come to you with "Is Python call-by-value or -reference?", then for the sake of getting them to break away from those contexts, I think your best bet is to say "neither", which is technically-but-not-practically slightly inaccurate.
You could try saying "It's technically call-by-value but you seriously need to forget everything about call-by-value in this context until I explain it to you," but depending on how their mind works, they may be looking for the connection to call-by-value the whole time you explain it (certainly that's what my mind would do if it were explained that way). And that's just a distraction.
So as long as you tell them at the end, "OK, so technically I lied earlier; this is call-by-value, but that's not how it's understood conceptually", I think the marginally inaccurate route is better.