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 Lines: 30 Message-ID: <8g5ess$57r$1@plato.wadham.ox.ac.uk> References: <Pine DOT LNX DOT 4 DOT 10 DOT 10005200542070 DOT 2249-100000 AT roadrunner DOT grendel DOT net> NNTP-Posting-Host: plato.wadham.ox.ac.uk X-Trace: news.ox.ac.uk 958807773 5876 163.1.164.74 (20 May 2000 07:29:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster AT ox DOT ac DOT uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 20 May 2000 07:29:33 GMT To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com 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