passing by refference

[Donn Cave]

Quoth aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz):
| In article <baejai$sjcop$1 at ID-169208.news.dfncis.de>,
| Greg Ewing (using news.cis.dfn.de) <g2h5dqi002 at sneakemail.com> wrote:
| >
|> P.S. I make no apology for using the word "reference" either, since I'm
|> also stating what the reference is referring to. I don't understand
|> why there is so much opposition to using this word when talking about
|> Python.  I maintain that, to correctly understand Python's data model,
|> you need some concept in your brain that's functionally equivalent to a
|> reference -- so why not call it that?
|
| I'm saving up time for a longer response to Donn, but here's a short
| one: I'm not at all opposed to using "reference" and indeed I use it all
| the time.  I just think that using "binding" is preferable in most cases
| because it gets people out of the pointer mindset.  Python bindings work
| differently from C pointer references, and because so many people in the
| Python community work in both Python and C/C++, I think that "binding"
| creates clarity.

That's odd - maybe I've been losing touch with C/C++ but I thought
"reference" there was a C++-only thing that's sort of an alternative
to dealing with pointers.  I guess it's possible that "pointer references"
could be common usage in the C world without me knowing it - I only
write C, don't talk about it all that much.  The reference part of
that expression seems kind of superfluous, though.

	Donn Cave, donn at drizzle.com