WolframLang: No Reference Concept in List

By Xah Lee. Date: .

No Reference Concept in WolframLang

Note: in WolframLang, there is no concept of “reference”, every Expression is literal.

In Python, JavaScript, Golang, Java, etc, list-like type has a value that's a “reference”. The reference concept for lists create a lot identity problems, especially when lists are nested, such as deep copy, shallow copy, clear vs reset, changing one changes its copy sometimes, complex meaning mutability (e.g. in JavaScript, array can be assigned to a constant, yet array element or length can still change.) etc. These problems do not occur in WolframLang.

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