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> More to the point, the notion of pointers referencing and dereferencing is a lower level concept than reference vs value types. The former is usually used to

• dwohnitmok 5y ago
  > If the end result is the same, then the claim is really meaningless. One being used to implement the other doesn't mean the end result is the same (you cannot use value types and reference types to implement pointers because of the call-site vs definition-site distinction). As I mentioned, value types are far more than pointer dereferencing.
  • azth 5y ago
    The point is, pointer dereferencing in golang is limited to mimicing value types/reference types, something that C# already offers. It is not like C and C++ where you have pointer arithmetic. So it's just an illusion that it is "closer to the metal".
    • dwohnitmok 5y ago
      No it's not. Value types and reference types are definition-site concepts whereas pointer referencing and dereferencing are call-site things. This allows both for different ways of programming as well as different language semantics.
    • thegeekpirate 5y ago
      > It is not like C and C++ where you have pointer arithmetic. You absolutely _can_ do pointer arithmetic—it just requires using the "unsafe" package for obvious reasons (https://go.dev/play/p/Batmgb1KJcg https://go.dev/play/p/Batmgb1KJcg). Hell, there's even a helper function (https://pkg.go.dev/unsafe#Add https://pkg.go.dev/unsafe#Add) for addition!
      • azth 5y ago
        Calling unsafe is not the point here. You can do similar things in Java if you really need to.