Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: technology discussion =?utf-8?Q?=E2=86=92?= does the world need a "new" C ? Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2024 02:01:22 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 41 Message-ID: <86o7717jj1.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <877cdur1z9.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <871q42qy33.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <87ed82p28y.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <87r0c1nzjj.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <87ikxconq4.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <20240711115418.00001cdf@yahoo.com> <20240712154252.00005c2f@yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2024 11:01:25 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="3070d615bd1460d90f058c7d1a751256"; logging-data="3707982"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/AYKMsnSBXQ/NBpuiyHjtR/mxFEYMjzMM=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:3o89yJ6imxbbTfV67SB6ExOFjd8= sha1:mGKtKyQb+piWlN6ETt04pb1VaS8= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:387125 Michael S writes: > On Fri, 12 Jul 2024 13:12:53 +0200 > Janis Papanagnou 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.) >> >> But, yes, that person is a phenomenon. > > I don't share your optimistic belief that the term "pass by reference" > is really established. Very few terms in computer science (science? > really?) are established firmly. Except, may be, in more theoretical > branches of it. 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. Much later, probably under the influence of people learning by reading blogs rather than books, some of these terms were expressed as, eg, "pass by value" or "pass by reference". However there is no indication that the change was meant to express a different meaning, except insofar as the person(s) using the revised terms were confused. Anyone who refuses to stick to the firmly established meanings is in all likelihood just someone who enjoys being fractious.