4 ms·

Thanks this is what I was looking for! Pointers are one of those things I’ve heard about for years but don’t know too much about. I know that in js objects are

Thanks this is what I was looking for! Pointers are one of those things I’ve heard about for years but don’t know too much about. I know that in js objects are passed by copies of a reference to that object in memory. I have never felt that there was something missing here — only that it requires an understanding of which types in js are passed by value vs reference. What is the upside to pointers in C? For instance in js I can pass an object to a function that modifies the object’s properties. The only thing I can’t do (I think) is pass an object to a function, and then reassign that object’s reference to a new object literal such that the original object reference now references the new object literal. Is this gap in a language like js where pointers come in, or am I missing the forest for the trees? If this is where pointers become useful/beneficial to be knowledgeable on, can they really be that useful? Full disclaimer that I don’t know anything about pointers aside from implementing data structures in js e.g. a linked list node has a `this.next` property, but in other languages this seems to be called/implemented as a pointer from what I’ve seen. To sum my thoughts on this up: can you help me understand why pointers would be useful for me to invest in learning on the level of C versus continuing to let them be abstracted away/not present in my language? What would that knowledge do for me? Will I be a better problem solver etc. thanks again!

ankrgyl 4y ago
It's not that there's an "advantage" to pointers, but rather it's the reality that they exist. Everything you're doing in JS also "uses" pointers under the hood, but the language and runtime abstract that away from you. C exposes you to pointers directly, so you have an opportunity to learn what they are and how they work. It's important to learn how they work, because it'll give you a better idea of what's actually happening in the higher level languages you're using. That may not be important if you stick to JS or Go, but if you'd like to learn Rust then it's impossible to accurately think through tradeoffs like whether to use Box, Rc, Arc, etc. without understanding how pointers work. In other words, I'd only recommend learning Rust if you take the time to understand pointers, and the best way to understand pointers is to write C.

ankrgyl 4y ago

It's not that there's an "advantage" to pointers, but rather it's the reality that they exist. Everything you're doing in JS also "uses" pointers under the hood, but the language and runtime abstract that away from you. C exposes you to pointers directly, so you have an opportunity to learn what they are and how they work. It's important to learn how they work, because it'll give you a better idea of what's actually happening in the higher level languages you're using. That may not be important if you stick to JS or Go, but if you'd like to learn Rust then it's impossible to accurately think through tradeoffs like whether to use Box, Rc, Arc, etc. without understanding how pointers work. In other words, I'd only recommend learning Rust if you take the time to understand pointers, and the best way to understand pointers is to write C.