Hi --

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007, Robert Dober wrote:

> On 9/29/07, David A. Black <dblack / rubypal.com> wrote:
>> Hi --
>>
>> On Sat, 29 Sep 2007, Phlip wrote:
>>
>>> SpringFlowers AutumnMoon wrote:
>>>
>>>> (and in Ruby, we call a method by "pass by value, the value being the
>>>> reference (pointer) to an object).  and when the method returns
>>>> something, it returns a value, which is the reference to an object.)  It
>>>> is very consistent all the way.  In Ruby, we don't have the "alias
>>>> reference", right?
>>>
>>> In Ruby, types that can (generally) fit into 32 bits are "immediate
>>> types". These Fixnums and Floats are pass-by-value. All other types -
>>> from String up - are pass by reference:
>>
>> I'd describe it more as SpringFlowers did: pass by value, where the
>> value happens to be a reference.
> Completely agruee with that. IIRC this discussion has been there quite
> a while ago and general agreement was not reached on it.

I don't think there's much ambiguity; when you do:

   s = "string"

you're binding s to a reference to the object on the right.

Are you thinking of the discussion about whether or not it's
important/useful to note the distinction between references and
immediate values in variables?


David

-- 
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