Re: pass by reference

Patricia Shanahan <pats@xxxxxxx> wrote:
The issue is more critical for people for whom "pass by reference" is
familiar language. They will think they know what it means, and have to
find out somehow that it means something entirely different, when
talking about Java, that it does when talking about other languages.

Andreas Leitgeb wrote:
Why is it ok, to talk of references in Java, but have an entirely different meaning of "reference" in mind in context of the phrase
"pass by reference"?

Because Java defines "reference" in a particular way, but not "call by reference", which is an industry standard term, as I have learned here. The two terms do not depend on each other for their meaning, in the way you wish to imply.

I deduced my liberty to "redefine" "pass by ref" from Java's liberty
to redefine "reference" in the first place. My redefinition of it was coined on java's vocabulary: Objects are not passed directly
(as possible in C++, where the whole structure of the object gets
dumped on the stack), but "through use of (Java-)references".
This is natural language as I understand it.

We aren't discussing "natural" language, we are discussing technical argot.

Enough people have expressed the dangers inherit in deliberately misinterpreting "pass references by value" to mean "pass objects by reference". Those with the wisdom to appreciate the reasoning will make the distinction.

--
Lew
.

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