From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@...>
Date: 2002-10-15T17:36:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know

On Mon, Oct 14, 2002 at 02:07:08PM +0900, Bulat Ziganshin wrote:
> to be exact, all data except Fixnum/nil/true/false are represented by
> references.

I don't think so: all data _including_ Fixnum/nil/true/false are represented
by references.

This is easy to demonstrate.'a=Array.new' and 'a=3' both leave 'a'
containing an object reference, since in both cases you can invoke object
methods on 'a'.

(It is true that these special references are not pointers; however the
language does not have a concept of 'pointer', it is an internal
implementation issue only)

Regards,

Brian.