but less clear. Some of the newer languages do aways with -> completely but I think it just obscures the data structures. The one frequent annoyance that I ha

but less clear. Some of the newer languages do aways with -> completely but I think it just obscures the data structures. The one frequent annoyance that I had with . vs -> is that for access local variables I need to use . and if I make that code into a function that takes the local variables as a pointer, I need to change the code into ->. In other words, I can't easily move the code through stages of solidification using simple copy & paste. That's why I tend to declare my local variables using pointer literal syntax, e.g. Foo *local_thing = &(Foo) { ... }; That way it gets easier to move the code out.