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From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:_technology_discussion_=e2=86=92_does_the_world_need_a?=
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Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2024 12:35:34 +0200
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On 13.07.2024 11:39, BGB wrote:
> On 7/13/2024 4:01 AM, Tim Rentsch wrote:
>> Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> writes:
>>> On Fri, 12 Jul 2024 13:12:53 +0200
>>> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> But maybe he has looked up some things, since lately he's squirming
>>>> by introducing terms like "_true_ pass-by-reference" [emphasis by me]
>>>> obviously trying to bend the semantics of the established technical
>>>> "pass-by-reference" term to fit his argument.  (Introducing new terms
>>>> for existing mechanisms or bending semantics of existing terms with
>>>> well established meaning is certainly not helpful in any way.)
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>
>>> I don't share your optimistic belief that the term "pass by reference"
>>> is really established.  [...]
>>
>> The terms
>>
>>     call by name
>>     call by value
>>     call by reference
>>     call by value-result
>>
>> are all well-defined and firmly established, going back more than
>> 60 years.  I learned all of these in standard early course in
>> computer science sometime in the early 1970s.  Of course I can't
>> be sure about the source after all these years, but I expect
>> they were defined in the textbook we were using in the class.
>>
>> [...]
> 
> As I see it, they are not exactly the same:
> "call by reference", is from the POV of how arguments themselves are
> passed to functions during a function call;
> "pass by reference" has more to do with the data or object being
> conveyed (usually means that a pointer to the object is being passed,
> but generally used in cases where no explicit pointer exists).

Old and also contemporary sources speak about "call". But "pass"
might be more appropriately describing the mechanism as someone
mentioned before (and thus "pass" is probably less confusing).

I suggest to speak about "by reference" as mechanism and don't
focus too much on "call" or "pass".

(And of course to point to informal usages of "reference" as to
not mix it with the established "by reference" mechanism term.)

Janis

> [...]