... I hope that is the last I want to say about this topic. Pascal and his follower cannot be convinced, because they insist on talking about meaning without grounding it in a formal or semiformal language semantics, and one cannot refute "opinions" that expressed fuzzily enough because there is not enough hard logic and commitment in them to refute by contradiction. You only can say "no no no"...

... that allow me to capture those effects that create bugs. In the case of identity, I'd say that's aliasing. Since intuition gives me ambivalent results here, I'll go back to my semiformal definition (and take the opportunity to make it a bit more precise): Two path expressions (lvalues, ...) are aliases if and only if the referred-to values compare equal, and if they stay ...

...at preserving identity, but that's just a side track.) OIDs are something of a kludge, and they break set semantics. Since intuition gives me ambivalent results here, I'll go back to my semiformal definition (and take the opportunity to make it a bit more precise): Two path expressions (lvalues, ...) are aliases if and only if the referred-to values compare equal, and if they...

...I'm not sure whether this makes OID systems better or worse at preserving identity, but that's just a side track.) Since intuition gives me ambivalent results here, I'll go back to my semiformal definition (and take the opportunity to make it a bit more precise): Two path expressions (lvalues, ...) are aliases if and only if the referred-to values compare equal, and if they stay equal ...