* Steven D'Aprano:
On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:33:50 -0800, Steve Howell wrote:
You seem to be missing the point that "curly braces" is a concrete
term that very specifically applies to spelling.
And you seem to be missing the point that "pointer" is also a concrete
term that very specifically applies to, well, pointers.
[...]
I agree that "reference" is a much better term than "pointer.". It has
the right amount of generalness in my opinion. I think "violence" is a
bit overstated, but your bigger point is well taken and it seems like
"reference" is useful middle ground between pure cpython language and
misrepresentative analogy.
But reference also has a concrete meaning: C++ has a type explicitly
called "reference":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_(C++)
And of course call-by-reference (or pass-by-reference) has a specific,
technical meaning.
Hm.
Consider your argument about "reference" being possible to confuse with "pass by
reference" in the light of "pass by name", used by Algol, <url:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jensen%27s_Device>.
Oops, to consistently remove all possible ambiguity the term "name" can't be
used about formal arguments.
I think, even though "pass by name" is much less well known than "pass by
reference", this indicates that it's not practically possible to remove all
possible ambiguity.
I think some Common Sense(TM) must in any case be assumed, and applied.
Cheers,
- Alf
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