4 ms·

I'm talking about the level of e.g. programming language implementation. A lambda needs to be assigned an id, for example, but it's not a reference that the use

• TeMPOraL 9y ago
  You don't manipulate the reference directly (i.e. you shouldn't learn its numeric value (though you can - useful for debugging), and you can't change it) - but you do use it indirectly all the times with ==, eq, or however the referential equality operator is called in a given programming language. This is what, given (excuse the Java): MyObject a = new String("choo choo"); MyObject b = a; MyObject c = new String("choo choo"); allows you to observe that: a == b; a != c; b != c; even though: a.equals(b); a.equals(c); b.equals(c); under string comparison. This is exactly like surrogate keys. An implementation detail that's crucial to the meaning of the whole thing.