From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2007-09-30T22:57:39+09:00
Subject: Re: a = Dog.new # a is not a pointer and not a reference?

On 9/29/07, Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@ameritech.net> wrote:
> Try this. Without going into implementation details, of which I am
> ignorant, a Ruby variable establishes an association between an
> identifier and an object [*]. The association is specific to a
> particular lexical scope and to a particular execution extent.
> Therefore the same identifier can be associated (refer to) different
> objects in different scopes and different objects at different points
> of the execution. Such an association should perhaps more strictly be
> called a binding rather than a reference, but 'reference' is often
> used in informal discourse.
> [...]

> [*] Yes, I know this is not the whole story. I'm trying to keep
> things simple.

It's close enough to the whole story as to not matter from the Ruby
programmer's point of view. Implementers care differently.

-austin
-- 
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