top | item 47180749

(no title)

1718627440 | 3 days ago

Handles and pointers are the same concept, the difference is just who resolves them. Pointers don't represent hardware addresses either.

discuss

order

fulafel|2 days ago

Well, if we reduce it enough I supposed they can be seen as the same concept through a certain kind of philosophical lense. True and false also belong in the same class, they're handles to a pool of two possible boolean values.

The difference is in scope. Pointers (aka memory addresses) are an ordered set of numbers enumerating all the memory locations, it enables unique powerful properties that enable a large set of uses that you cannot do with handles. And also make them quite unsafe and harder to understand.