title: Why don't I need to check if references are invalid/null?
body: <p>Reading <a href="http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/references.html" rel="noreferrer">http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/references.html</a>, it says:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>In general, references should always
    be valid because you must always
    initialize a reference. This means
    that barring some bizarre
    circumstances (see below), you can be
    certain that using a reference is just
    like using a plain old non-reference
    variable. You don't need to check to
    make sure that a reference isn't
    pointing to NULL, and you won't get
    bitten by an uninitialized reference
    that you forgot to allocate memory
    for.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>My question is how do I know that the object's memory hasn't been freed/deleted AFTER you've initialized the reference.</p>
  
  <p>What it comes down to is that I can't take this advice on faith and I need a better explanation.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone shed some light?</p>