True, but we had our own version of unsafe for a much longer time. MS was just pragmatic enough to allow it across the ecosystem. I'm guessing at least some of

True, but we had our own version of unsafe for a much longer time. MS was just pragmatic enough to allow it across the ecosystem. I'm guessing at least some of that was a side effect of wanting to support C++; not having pointers as an option would have killed C++/CLI from the get go.