[maranas]

I agree with you for the most part. C/C++ lets you do what you want, presumably because you know what you're doing. But I don't agree that pointers are evil, and should be avoided. If you want to do any practical programming with C/C++ at all, you have to learn how to dynamically allocate memory and use pointers. Generally, pointers work as advertised. It's the cases where they work when they shouldn't that is the problem. In these cases a compiler usually warns you, so you are still covered. So in C/C++, just because it works, doesn't mean your code is right.

[nl]

But I don't agree that pointers are evil, and should be avoided.

No one is saying that at all. Pointers aren't evil, but they are dangerous.

Perhaps a better analogy is a sharp chef's knife. In the right hands it's an effective and efficient tool that lets you do things quicker and just as safely as any other tool.

In the wrong hands it is dangerous to the person using it and to those around them.

There are numerous other examples: welding torches, motorbikes, explosives etc etc.

[stoney]

Exactly. I didn't mean to imply that pointers are evil or should be avoided. That was supposed to be the point of my dynamite analogy, but I guess the comment made elsewhere on this topic about the inadequacies of analogies holds true here.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, I believe: pointers are awesome, powerful tools and you can do some great things in C/C++ using them and I sometimes miss them (a little bit) when using other languages. But you can also do some terrible things with them - and I have done some spectacularly bad things with them in the past. But that doesn't mean they are bad - it just means that I am reckless.

[varjag]

> C/C++ lets you do what you want, presumably because you know what you're doing.

Frankly, C++ is kinda schizophrenic about it. First, it is really anal about class membership, to the extent they had to introduce friend qualifier to get around its impracticality. And then you get this.