[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.