Terminology: "reference" versus "pointer"

[Rustom Mody]

On Saturday, September 12, 2015 at 9:47:33 PM UTC+5:30, rurpy wrote:
> Frankly, I feel a little insulted by people who presume that having 
> learned what a pointer is in C, that my brain is so rigid that I must 
> necessarily think that pointer means exactly what pointer means in C
> forever after.

Its more amusing than insulting
Just open CPython sources and there's a pointer on every other line

Best I can see, the people frothing at the mouth that python has no pointers
are basically saying that "non-first-class" == "non-existent"

By that same logic C has neither types nor functions

Speaking as a teacher, sometimes one needs to be clean and dishonest
Sometimes one needs to be honest and mop up after leaky abstractions