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Ah, I see the reasoning. I only did basic Java in university so I might be remembering incorrectly, but aren't variables storing non-primitive values called "Re

• lmm 8y ago
  > I only did basic Java in university so I might be remembering incorrectly, but aren't variables storing non-primitive values called "References"? Technically yes, but since the language doesn't let you talk about references directly, the concept rarely comes up. Like, in theory you could say "a is a reference that refers to a value of type Foo", but people don't actually say that; they just say "a is of type Foo". > Seems weird to me to say that Java "passes by value" when all objects being passed are actually references to objects. Indeed, completely agreed.
  • emidln 8y ago
    You do see this kind of language in Clojure, where you can talk about a var separately from its value.