Are the values of objects the references to them?

[T.J. Crowder]

On Sat, Aug 26, 2017 at 4:57 PM, Allen Wirfs-Brock
<allen at wirfs-brock.com> wrote:
>
> Actually, that terminology was introduced by the first edition of
> ECMA-262 in 1997.  Guy Steele was the editor for ES1 and I
> happily defer to his terminology choices.

Let's just say I was trusting that as primary editor for the last several
versions, you'd've fixed it if it were incorrect in some way. :-)

On Sat, Aug 26, 2017 at 9:41 PM, Allen Wirfs-Brock
<allen at wirfs-brock.com> wrote:
>
> this…
>
> > On Aug 26, 2017, at 1:26 PM, Michael Dyck <jmdyck at ibiblio.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Anotherreason might be to avoid making a distinction that the
> > spec will never (or rarely) use.
> >
> > When you pass a value to a function-parameter or assign a value
> > to a variable, you are (in spec terms, more or less) binding that
> > value to an identifier name, i.e., creating an association
> > between the name and the value.
> >
> > Given that terminology, I don't think it helps to add "reference"
> > to the description. It's enough to understand that a value can
> > participate in multiple bindings/associations at the same time.
> > But you're free to imagine references being involved in the
> > implementation.

Thank you Michael and Allen. This is exactly the kind of answer I was
looking for when I asked [my question][1] a couple of weeks ago. Vis-à-vis
that, when helping beginners understand object references, I'll keep using
the terminology I've been using (whew) but make sure they understand
"value" can be and is used in other ways, notably in the spec.

-- T.J. Crowder

[1]: https://esdiscuss.org/topic/are-objects-values
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