The thing is, you don't want to index pointers. You only want to index a particular kind of "indexable pointers." They should be separate constructs, even if y

The thing is, you don't want to index pointers. You only want to index a particular kind of "indexable pointers." They should be separate constructs, even if you don't have fat pointers. Edit: That is more useful if you have function overloading, or templates, to avoid touchy ambiguities. It's still a slightly useful distinction to have in C, just for human readability.