Improve reference expressions

[turbolent]

Re-port of #1661 to Stable Cadence.
It had been previously accidentally reverted by merging master into the Stable Cadence branch

Also:

• Update documentation
• Make parser-initalization errors non-syntax errors: they are implementation errors and not user errors.

---

• Targeted PR against master branch
• Linked to Github issue with discussion and accepted design OR link to spec that describes this work
• Code follows the standards mentioned here
• Updated relevant documentation
• Re-reviewed Files changed in the Github PR explorer
• Added appropriate labels

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Merging #2010 (0a9e891) into feature/stable-cadence (5a45664) will increase coverage by 0.00%.
The diff coverage is 81.81%.

❗ Current head 0a9e891 differs from pull request most recent head 999bb0c. Consider uploading reports for the commit 999bb0c to get more accurate results

@@                   Coverage Diff                   @@
##           feature/stable-cadence    #2010   +/-   ##
=======================================================
  Coverage                   77.96%   77.97%           
=======================================================
  Files                         304      304           
  Lines                       62318    62307   -11     
=======================================================
- Hits                        48589    48581    -8     
+ Misses                      12016    12014    -2     
+ Partials                     1713     1712    -1     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	77.97% <81.81%> (+<0.01%)	⬆️

Flags with carried forward coverage won't be shown. Click here to find out more.

Impacted Files	Coverage Δ
runtime/parser/errors.go	24.35% <ø> (-3.69%)	⬇️
runtime/parser/type.go	84.14% <0.00%> (ø)
runtime/parser/expression.go	87.91% <70.00%> (+0.13%)	⬆️
runtime/ast/expression.go	90.97% <100.00%> (-0.05%)	⬇️
runtime/literal.go	86.56% <100.00%> (+0.16%)	⬆️
runtime/sema/check_array_expression.go	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)
runtime/sema/check_dictionary_expression.go	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)
runtime/sema/check_reference_expression.go	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)

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[github-actions]

Cadence Benchstat comparison

This branch with compared with the base branch onflow:feature/stable-cadence commit 5a45664
The command for i in {1..N}; do go test ./... -run=XXX -bench=. -benchmem -shuffle=on; done was used.
Bench tests were run a total of 7 times on each branch.

Collapsed results for better readability

	old.txt	new.txt
	time/op		delta
CheckContractInterfaceFungibleTokenConformance-2	138µs ± 2%	136µs ± 2%	~	(p=0.093 n=6+6)
ContractInterfaceFungibleToken-2	40.4µs ± 1%	40.5µs ± 0%	~	(p=0.945 n=7+6)
InterpretRecursionFib-2	2.66ms ± 2%	2.64ms ± 1%	−1.00%	(p=0.041 n=6+6)
NewInterpreter/new_interpreter-2	1.16µs ± 0%	1.19µs ± 3%	+2.27%	(p=0.004 n=5+6)
NewInterpreter/new_sub-interpreter-2	661ns ± 0%	668ns ± 1%	+1.01%	(p=0.004 n=5+6)
ParseArray-2	8.84ms ± 6%	8.85ms ± 4%	~	(p=0.710 n=7+7)
ParseDeploy/byte_array-2	13.2ms ± 2%	13.2ms ± 4%	~	(p=0.534 n=6+7)
ParseDeploy/decode_hex-2	1.16ms ± 3%	1.15ms ± 1%	~	(p=0.097 n=7+7)
ParseFungibleToken/With_memory_metering-2	214µs ± 1%	213µs ± 0%	~	(p=0.234 n=7+6)
ParseFungibleToken/Without_memory_metering-2	166µs ± 0%	170µs ± 4%	+2.33%	(p=0.005 n=6+7)
ParseInfix-2	7.74µs ± 1%	7.71µs ± 1%	~	(p=0.136 n=7+7)
QualifiedIdentifierCreation/One_level-2	2.34ns ± 0%	2.68ns ± 1%	+14.47%	(p=0.001 n=6+7)
QualifiedIdentifierCreation/Three_levels-2	140ns ± 0%	142ns ± 2%	+1.13%	(p=0.020 n=7+7)
RuntimeFungibleTokenTransfer-2	750µs ± 3%	643µs ±25%	~	(p=0.259 n=7+7)
RuntimeResourceDictionaryValues-2	5.24ms ± 2%	5.25ms ± 3%	~	(p=0.710 n=7+7)
RuntimeScriptNoop-2	19.2µs ±23%	20.2µs ±27%	~	(p=0.902 n=7+7)
ValueIsSubtypeOfSemaType-2	93.4ns ± 1%	92.2ns ± 1%	−1.31%	(p=0.001 n=6+7)
	alloc/op		delta
CheckContractInterfaceFungibleTokenConformance-2	61.6kB ± 0%	61.6kB ± 0%	~	(p=0.592 n=7+7)
ContractInterfaceFungibleToken-2	24.0kB ± 0%	24.0kB ± 0%	~	(p=0.385 n=7+6)
InterpretRecursionFib-2	1.23MB ± 0%	1.23MB ± 0%	~	(p=0.449 n=7+7)
NewInterpreter/new_interpreter-2	848B ± 0%	848B ± 0%	~	(all equal)
NewInterpreter/new_sub-interpreter-2	264B ± 0%	264B ± 0%	~	(all equal)
ParseArray-2	2.81MB ± 2%	2.82MB ± 2%	~	(p=0.805 n=7+7)
ParseDeploy/byte_array-2	4.39MB ± 3%	4.39MB ± 3%	~	(p=0.805 n=7+7)
ParseDeploy/decode_hex-2	214kB ± 0%	214kB ± 0%	~	(p=0.888 n=7+7)
ParseFungibleToken/With_memory_metering-2	36.7kB ± 0%	36.7kB ± 0%	~	(p=0.490 n=7+7)
ParseFungibleToken/Without_memory_metering-2	36.7kB ± 0%	36.7kB ± 0%	+0.04%	(p=0.033 n=6+7)
ParseInfix-2	2.17kB ± 0%	2.17kB ± 0%	~	(p=0.700 n=7+7)
QualifiedIdentifierCreation/One_level-2	0.00B	0.00B	~	(all equal)
QualifiedIdentifierCreation/Three_levels-2	64.0B ± 0%	64.0B ± 0%	~	(all equal)
RuntimeFungibleTokenTransfer-2	111kB ± 0%	111kB ± 1%	~	(p=0.097 n=7+7)
RuntimeResourceDictionaryValues-2	2.27MB ± 0%	2.27MB ± 0%	~	(p=0.383 n=7+7)
RuntimeScriptNoop-2	8.73kB ± 1%	8.73kB ± 0%	~	(p=1.000 n=7+6)
ValueIsSubtypeOfSemaType-2	48.0B ± 0%	48.0B ± 0%	~	(all equal)
	allocs/op		delta
CheckContractInterfaceFungibleTokenConformance-2	1.03k ± 0%	1.03k ± 0%	~	(all equal)
ContractInterfaceFungibleToken-2	427 ± 0%	427 ± 0%	~	(all equal)
InterpretRecursionFib-2	22.5k ± 0%	22.5k ± 0%	~	(all equal)
NewInterpreter/new_interpreter-2	14.0 ± 0%	14.0 ± 0%	~	(all equal)
NewInterpreter/new_sub-interpreter-2	5.00 ± 0%	5.00 ± 0%	~	(all equal)
ParseArray-2	70.0k ± 0%	70.0k ± 0%	~	(p=1.000 n=7+7)
ParseDeploy/byte_array-2	105k ± 0%	105k ± 0%	~	(p=1.000 n=7+7)
ParseDeploy/decode_hex-2	77.0 ± 0%	77.0 ± 0%	~	(all equal)
ParseFungibleToken/With_memory_metering-2	1.07k ± 0%	1.07k ± 0%	~	(all equal)
ParseFungibleToken/Without_memory_metering-2	1.07k ± 0%	1.07k ± 0%	~	(all equal)
ParseInfix-2	66.0 ± 0%	66.0 ± 0%	~	(all equal)
QualifiedIdentifierCreation/One_level-2	0.00	0.00	~	(all equal)
QualifiedIdentifierCreation/Three_levels-2	2.00 ± 0%	2.00 ± 0%	~	(all equal)
RuntimeFungibleTokenTransfer-2	2.20k ± 0%	2.20k ± 0%	~	(p=0.462 n=7+7)
RuntimeResourceDictionaryValues-2	36.9k ± 0%	36.9k ± 0%	~	(p=1.000 n=7+7)
RuntimeScriptNoop-2	145 ± 0%	145 ± 0%	~	(all equal)
ValueIsSubtypeOfSemaType-2	1.00 ± 0%	1.00 ± 0%	~	(all equal)