"Edward Diener" <eddielee@tropicsoft.com> writes:
David Abrahams wrote:
"Edward Diener" <eddielee@tropicsoft.com> writes:
This may be seen as a nitpick by I think the generalized one-line explanation for 'ref', as well as the text in the 'ref' introduction should say "passing reference parameters to generic functions" rather than "passing references to generic functions".
If I was going to add a word there, it would be "arguments," not "parameters."
I have never seen a good explanation of the difference between "parameters" or "arguments" when passing data to functions, but "arguments" seems equally as good. I just felt that the term "references to generic functions" does sound confusing since references must refer to something and the terminology makes it sound like it refers to generic functions rather than the types of data one passes to generic functions.
Arguments are the actual things passed in. Parameters are the names for those things on the inside. FWIW, I only learned the distinction last year. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting http://www.boost-consulting.com