10 years

definitely agree

c/c++ is actually quite evil sometimes, and will let you do something like

static s_clockTime = 0.-f;

// ...

s_clockTime += dt;

without even giving a single warning!

lycium Wrote:
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<snipped>
> besides this there is only the syntactic
> difference between references and pointers...
>

No, there is not. A pointer is a variable that can hold an address to memory. A
reference is the address of an object in memory. Hence, a pointer can have arithmetic
performed on it, and can point to nothing at all, while a reference cannot support
arithmetic operations and always has to be valid (cannot have a reference to "nothing",
like a pointer to "NULL" or a reference to anything, like a pointer to "void".

The only similarity I can see is that taking the address of a variable results in both a
pointer and a reference, whichever you would like.

maybe read the part you snipped

lycium Wrote:
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> maybe read the part you snipped

Okay

lycium Wrote:
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> all the crazy things you can do with pointers are probably not a good idea for
> general (non-performance oriented) software development,

Now, what relevance has this to my explanation that the difference between pointers
and references is deeper than mere syntax?