Strict definition of value types and reference types

[Ali Çehreli]

On 04/13/2013 08:46 PM, Nicholas Smith wrote:

 > On Sunday, 14 April 2013 at 02:51:35 UTC, bearophile wrote:
 >> slices are kind of hybrids between values and references. You can also
 >> think of them as fat references. When you program in D you must
 >> remember this nature of sliced, otherwise your code will not work...
 >>
 >> Bye,
 >> bearophile
 >
 > Ali Çehreli uses slices as the first example for what a reference type
 > is in his "Programming in D". Perhaps that is not a good example then.

That must be fixed then. :/ Slices are value types but they have 
reference semantics: they are references to elements but a slice 
variable itself is data on its own.

Your definition of value type vs. reference type is correct. These 
definitions come from how the language behaves. structs are value types 
and classes are reference types.

structs are the most powerful because they can be used to provide value 
semantics or reference semantics.

Ali