It's not quite the same, as JS doesn't have what's known as pass by reference in VB.

JS and Python always pass object references (pointers) by value (the value being the memory address), but in VB you can pass references by reference, references by value, values by reference or values by value, which lets you do things like this:

  Dim x as Integer
  x = 1
  SomeFunction x
  Debug.Assert x = 2    ' our local variable was reassigned from elsewhere