> It is not just VB programmers, its any programmers of modern OOP languages like VB, VB.Net (which is different from VB, just has the same style of syntax), C#, Java and others.

VB has references:

Sub Foo(ByRef X As String)
    X = "Foo"
End Sub

C++ has references:

void Foo(string &X) {
    X = *new string("Foo");
}

Perl has references:

sub Foo {
    $_[0] = "Foo";
}

FORTRAN only has references. Java does not. Smalltalk does not. Common-Lisp does not. Most lisps do not. Python does not. Most C++ programmers don't use them. Perl goes through enormous contortions to detect problems at run-time caused by references. As far as I know the only language with the encouraged and pervasive use of references is Visual Basic.

Perhaps you're confusing references with something else?