I remember that understanding pointers requires a special mental effort, it changes your head, and then can be used to clearly separates programmers who can thi

I remember that understanding pointers requires a special mental effort, it changes your head, and then can be used to clearly separates programmers who can think in pointers and programmers who don't. In this regard, "pointers" in CS can be analogous to "stick shift" in driving cars. This remind me of this article of Joel on Software: "All the kids who did great in high school writing pong games in BASIC for their Apple II would get to college, take CompSci 101, a data structures course, and when they hit the pointers business their brains would just totally explode, and the next thing you knew, they were majoring in Political Science because law school seemed like a better idea" s/java/python http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchool...