I'd agree, and even in Python, we end up talking about how some variables store "memory addresses," to explain the sometimes confusing behavior of variables bou

I'd agree, and even in Python, we end up talking about how some variables store "memory addresses," to explain the sometimes confusing behavior of variables bound to mutable objects. What's less essential is understanding all the ways that (C's) pointers can bite you: pointer arithmetic that results in invalid addresses, use after free, dereferencing uninitialized pointers, returning a pointer to a local variable from a function, and so on.