From: SpringFlowers AutumnMoon <summercoolness@...>
Date: 2007-09-30T02:16:48+09:00
Subject: a = Dog.new  # a is not a pointer and not a reference?

when we say

a = Dog.new("lulu")

Now a is not really a pointer, because we don't need to dereference it
to use it, like

(*a).color = "red"
a->color = "red"

When we use a.color, it is like a reference in C++ implicitly
dereference it and use its attributes.

But then a is not really a reference (like C++), because we can say

a = nil  or   a = Dog.new("woofy")

and now a points to some where else.  With reference, once a reference
is set, it cannot point to some where else  (in C++).

So it is kind of a mixture of pointer and reference?

Or, we can think of it as a pointer, and then think of "." as the "->"
in C++.

In that case, we can say that a is a pointer and not a reference.

And it seems the same way in Java, Python, and PHP5.

(Pointers and References discussed in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_%28computer_science%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_%28C%2B%2B%29

)
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