[nickpsecurity]

It was a great detailed explanation that also illustrates why I've held off on Round 2 of reviewing the docs. I mean, I read this...

"This is sort of a long-winded way of saying that Rust is "pass by value", not "pass by reference." Some people like to call this "pass reference by value", since while it's always pass by value, references are themselves values."

...and instantly have to focus hard to make sure I'm not slipping on the basic concepts. The wording of many Rust descriptions seems unnecessarily confusing to the point that I just googled value vs reference semantics to make sure my memory wasn't screwed up [more]. In a normal 3GL, pass by reference basically stores a pointer in a variable and passes that value somewhere. That value/reference can be used to modify original data outside its original function. Is that what Rust does? If so, it's just pass by reference "with (caveats/rules here)." End of story. Otherwise, I'll see if I can guess a wording that doesn't merge opposite concepts.

[steveklabnik]

This concept isn't Rust specific, it's a general PLT thing. Rust is the same as C in this regard. Almost every language is pass by value these days. IIRC Fortran is pass by reference, an exception.

[nickpsecurity]

Then just say it's pass by reference instead of stuff I quoted. Counter anyone else doing the same in your usual, gentle style reminding how unnecessary confusion hurts adoption. Ill get back on helping find more of this stuff in the docs once im done moving.

Btw, I tried to get on your draft but link didnt work by time I got back to it. Was it merged into official docs or where so I read/review the right thing?

[steveklabnik]

I still failed, it's pass by value :( just like C.

http://github.com/rust-lang/book is the repo, and has a link to the rendered version.

[nickpsecurity]

It's all good. You still take the feedback and try to improve things. That's what counts. :)

Thanks for the link. Ill look at it again in coming weeks.