Re: Can somebody explain this code

From	John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.javascript
Subject	Re: Can somebody explain this code
Date	2016-03-24 11:22 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<8dj7fblpkjpt9m5qckoojbkmva8fqrhfmo@4ax.com> (permalink)
References	<ncv2un$mlp$1@dont-email.me> <ncv9sp$9b2$1@softins.softins.co.uk> <pointer-20160324013939@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de> <3102164.rQk1h68GbR@PointedEars.de>

Show all headers | View raw

On Thu, 24 Mar 2016 04:20:45 +0100, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn
<PointedEars@web.de> wrote:

  <snip>
>There are no pointers to functions.  Proper terminology includes: “reference 
>to a Function instance”, “reference to a function object”, and “reference to 
>a function”.
  <snip>

What nonsense!

When ECMA 262 Ed 6 uses the word "reference", all lower case, it is
using the word to mean something referring to something : to a
Standard, to some part of ECMA 262, to some part of a program's source
code, or to a property. It is a general word, not a defined piece of
ECMAScript terminology.

When a value is specified to be an object or a primitive string an
implementation of ECMAScript will almost certainly use a pointer to
what might be a large data structure. It can do this provided the
Standard is still obeyed. Calling it a pointer is perfectly correct. 

The word reference can be used when talking about the meaning of
source code that uses a value implemented internally as a
pointer-to-data. The word indicates that the language does not allow
you to know about or manipulate pointers themselves. Execution
automatically follows a pointer to its destination data. The word is
still not an ECMAScript-defined term.

  John

PS Annex E of ECMA 262 Ed 6 says :
  6.2.3: In ECMAScript 2015, Function calls are not allowed to return
  a Reference value.

Back to comp.lang.javascript | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Re: Can somebody explain this code tony@mountifield.org (Tony Mountifield) - 2016-03-23 23:46 +0000
  Re: Can somebody explain this code Aleksandro <aleksandro@gmx.com> - 2016-03-23 23:58 -0300
  Re: Can somebody explain this code Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-03-24 04:20 +0100
    Re: Can somebody explain this code "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2016-03-24 11:23 +0100
      Re: Can somebody explain this code Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-03-24 20:32 +0100
    Re: Can somebody explain this code John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2016-03-24 11:22 +0000

csiph-web