You're subtly wrong. Of course, you're completely right within the terminology of C++, but it is wrong on a moral level to use that terminology when explaining JS.
Many young people learn JS today. They have no idea a dinosaur such as C++ even exists, let alone that it has some quite technical definitions for notions such as references. It served Bjarne well (he had no choice, because he had to be backward compatible with C terminology), but it is high time we leave those exotic redefinitions behind. (Gosling tried to do it, but he did it halfway and the result it even more confusion.)
Young people today (in general, not CS-minded population) have no idea what "pointer" means (except as a designation for a certain finger:)), but they have a very good idea of what is a "reference" (google.com/search?q=define+reference). It is something that refers to the object in question. When we refer people to certain books in bibliography, it's perfectly understood that there are not books themselves in the bibliography (nor their aliases:-P), but references to them.
Let's use the word as it's intended to be used, and in the process demystify at least a bit of that impenetrable CS lingo. Yes, calling the JS variables "object references" will confuse you if you intend to implement JS in C++, but who would want to do that? :-D
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You're subtly wrong. Of course, you're completely right within the terminology of C++, but it is wrong on a moral level to use that terminology when explaining JS.
Many young people learn JS today. They have no idea a dinosaur such as C++ even exists, let alone that it has some quite technical definitions for notions such as references. It served Bjarne well (he had no choice, because he had to be backward compatible with C terminology), but it is high time we leave those exotic redefinitions behind. (Gosling tried to do it, but he did it halfway and the result it even more confusion.)
Young people today (in general, not CS-minded population) have no idea what "pointer" means (except as a designation for a certain finger:)), but they have a very good idea of what is a "reference" (google.com/search?q=define+reference). It is something that refers to the object in question. When we refer people to certain books in bibliography, it's perfectly understood that there are not books themselves in the bibliography (nor their aliases:-P), but references to them.
Let's use the word as it's intended to be used, and in the process demystify at least a bit of that impenetrable CS lingo. Yes, calling the JS variables "object references" will confuse you if you intend to implement JS in C++, but who would want to do that? :-D