From:	jstacey AT plato DOT wadham DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk (J-P)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: allocated memory size
Date:	20 May 2000 08:29:32 +0100
Organization:	Wadham College Oxford
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In article
<Pine DOT LNX DOT 4 DOT 10 DOT 10005200542070 DOT 2249-100000 AT roadrunner DOT grendel DOT net>,
Kalum Somaratna aka Grendel  <djgpp AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
>Please don't forget that this "sheer usefulness and blah blah of pointers"
>is also what has led to a countless numbers of errors in programs ranging
>from buffer overflows, to GPF's, even guru level programmers are not
>immune to making this kind of errors...

This sentence doesn't make sense, given that C is designed with the caveat
that you are capable of doing anything stupid. Of course pointers are
potentially dangerous, but if you're teaching someone C, you should start
fairly close to pointers, just like if you're teaching C++ you should
start with objects, or if you're teaching Perl you should start with Zen
Buddhism.

(I could explain * and & to people fairly easily, I think.)

Ignoring one of the fundamental parts of using C and C's ethos (as I see
it, of course) when you're teaching it to someone, just to protect them
from potential difficulty or confusion, strikes me as fairly patronising. 
At least, it's patronising when that person expresses a /wish/ to learn
about pointers.

But this probably belongs in comp.lang.c instead. 

J-P
-- 
Yeah I traded laughs
in for chartsengraphs

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