binding a reference to a variable

[Andrew Koenig]

Greg> Andrew Koenig (ark at research.att.com) wrote:

Greg> : My motivation is to be able to write something that is analogous
Greg> : to call-by-reference in C++.

Greg> *Not* having call-by-reference means that you can read code without
Greg> wondering whether a particular function call is or is not by reference.  I
Greg> consider this a blessing, and I'd like to think that the developers of
Greg> Lisp, C, Java, and Python feel the same way.

Of course, C arrays behave as if they are pass-by-reference
(only!), even though we both know that's not strictly true
under the skin.

Anyway, I would be quite content even if the references were
explicit at the point of call, which would meet your objection.
And there is even a straightforward way to achieve that state
now:  Pass a pair of get/set functions instead of the variable
itself.

So in fact there is a way to do what I want; it's just that it's
more verbose than I'd like.

-- 
Andrew Koenig, ark at research.att.com, http://www.research.att.com/info/ark