Jini™ Specifications, The, Second Edition

A.11. Observations for this Reprinting

1. When this note was written, the major system programming languages (C, C++, Modula3, etc.) all allowed direct access, to a greater or lesser degree, to pointers to internal memory. This paragraph points out that adding indirect references to such languages would allow two kinds of reference, one of which was distribution transparent while the other was not. Java, of course, does not have direct access to pointers. Because of the Java use of references within the language, it does provide a platform in which address-space-relative pointers are missing. Thus Java not only permits a unified addressing scheme, it enforces that scheme.

2. There are actually a number of interface definition languages that are referred ...