It's not that other languages don't have references, or that they cannot redefine references. It's that the phrase "pass by reference" is a term of art in comp

It's not that other languages don't have references, or that they cannot redefine references. It's that the phrase "pass by reference" is a term of art in compiler design, and all language theorists including those who work on Java agree on what it means, and what it means is the thing the article says it means, and Java doesn't do it. What gets passed by value in Java? Well, sometimes it's a reference-as-Java-means-it! But that reference is always passed by value, never passed by reference.