[lmm]

If you write foo(&a), both "you pass a by reference" and "you pass &a by value" are fair descriptions of what happens.

The confusion arises because Java doesn't explicitly distinguish between a and &a; if you write "Foo a = new Foo();" in Java, the behaviour is similar to "Foo *a = new Foo();" in C++. So if we ask how "a" is passed, is the "a" we're talking about the reference or the value?

[chi3]

Ah, I see the reasoning. I only did basic Java in university so I might be remembering incorrectly, but aren't variables storing non-primitive values called "References"?

Seems weird to me to say that Java "passes by value" when all objects being passed are actually references to objects.

[lmm]

> I only did basic Java in university so I might be remembering incorrectly, but aren't variables storing non-primitive values called "References"?

Technically yes, but since the language doesn't let you talk about references directly, the concept rarely comes up. Like, in theory you could say "a is a reference that refers to a value of type Foo", but people don't actually say that; they just say "a is of type Foo".

> Seems weird to me to say that Java "passes by value" when all objects being passed are actually references to objects.

Indeed, completely agreed.

[emidln]

You do see this kind of language in Clojure, where you can talk about a var separately from its value.

[zamalek]

The pointer value is passed (which is a valid contention), but that is what it has been defined as for decades.