This is one of the ideas I'm working on integrating into my toy data/programming language, Fern. https://github.com/andrewf/fern . It's not apparent from the README, but if you modify a Fern structure in memory, all dependent values will (should) be updated, even with name references pointing back up the hierarchy of data structures. These are mostly lists and maps (which define names for subsidiary structures), whic…
Sounds a bit like what they in .NET, especially WPF, call DataBinding? I.e a control can display a mirror of a variable/property without much manual intervention.
They're similar, but I think Fern takes a pretty different perspective.