In C, you can't even get user input without using pointers. Command-line argument? argv is a pointer. fgets/fscanf into a variable? You have to use a pointer. Y

In C, you can't even get user input without using pointers. Command-line argument? argv is a pointer. fgets/fscanf into a variable? You have to use a pointer. Yes, you can tell the students to treat those stars and ampersands as necessary magic that they don't need to understand right now, but you're still using pointers.