Just saying you're not targeting someone doesn't stop them from feeling bad about not understanding something that is apparently obvious. You have a different

Just saying you're not targeting someone doesn't stop them from feeling bad about not understanding something that is apparently obvious. You have a different background to many programmers, is it unreasonable that they don't understand/know something that you do? It certainly doesn't make them stupid and statements like "baffled that people don't understand pointers" definitely imply that they are somehow deficient. In any case, why does everyone have to care about in inner workings of everything they use? It seems perfectly reasonable for computers and programming languages to be things that people can use without having to understand the details, like cars, microwave ovens, aeroplanes, TVs, radios, analog watches, GPS (the list goes on). > That is why I pointed out a few, quite good, books where the subject of reference vs pointers happen to be described quite well in a programming language that isn't as intimidating as C or C++, while allowing for the same type of coding. Pointing out books is nice, but it doesn't make up for effectively abusing people who might need them: "read this to learn more" is way more pleasant than "I can't believe people don't know this, read this to learn more". https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/