Where does reference collide?

In the philosophy of language, the reference of an expression is the object in the world that the expression stands for or denotes: the reference of a name is the thing it picks out, and for Frege the reference of a whole sentence is its truth value. Frege's 1892 Über Sinn und Bedeutung drew the famous distinction between an expression's Bedeutung, the object referred to, and its Sinn, the way that object is presented, so that 'the morning star' and 'the evening star' refer to one object, the planet Venus, while presenting it in different ways. Here the referent is a semantic relation between language and the world, a matter of what words denote, and it has nothing to do with a stored address in a running program, a pointer to a cited source, or a character report written for a job seeker.[1]

Unit

One expression paired with the object it denotes

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Analysed by tracing what an expression picks out, and by testing substitution and truth across different contexts

In computing, a reference is a value that gives indirect access to a datum stored elsewhere, such as a pointer holding a memory address or a handle naming an object, so that code can read or change the datum without holding it directly. Strachey's 2000 Fundamental Concepts in Programming Languages, from his 1967 lectures, formalised this as the difference between an expression's L-value, a location that can be referred to and assigned, and its R-value, the content at that location, which underlies passing arguments by reference rather than by value and schemes like reference counting that reclaim memory when the last reference is dropped. This referent is a machine-level link between a name and a storage location, and it is unrelated to what a word denotes in a language, a citation in a bibliography, or a testimonial about a candidate.[2]

Unit

One value that locates a datum stored elsewhere, such as a pointer or handle

Recovery means

A datum is reclaimed once its last reference is dropped, as in reference counting or garbage collection

Measured by

Inspected as a stored address or handle, and traced by how many references point to a given datum

In employment and human resources, a reference is a statement about a person's character, conduct, or qualifications, given by someone who knows them, such as a former employer or teacher, to help an organisation judge a candidate: it takes the form of a reference letter or a spoken reference check, and the person providing it is also called a reference. Muchinsky's 1979 The use of reference reports in personnel selection reviewed how such reports are gathered and how weakly they tend to predict later job performance, given the favourable bias of referees a candidate has chosen. This referent is a social testimonial about an individual, weighed in a hiring decision, and it bears no relation to what an expression denotes, a link to stored data, or a citation in a bibliography.[3]

Unit

One testimonial about a named person's character or qualifications

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Collected as a reference letter or reference check and rated for its bearing on a candidate's suitability