> There are many programming environments that are both common and quite productive that have no pointers at all. This is a bit misleading. The vast majority o

> There are many programming environments that are both common and quite productive that have no pointers at all. This is a bit misleading. The vast majority of languages have pointers (languages without object identities exist - functional languages for example - but they are relatively the exception). However, those languages tend to give them other names. What non-systems languages lack is pointer arithmetic and native notions of pointer-to-pointer (though it is always possible to simulate the latter). I agree the person you responded to showed a toxic attitude. I believe/hope that the first step to improvement for people who think they don't get pointers is for them to realize they've been working with pointers all along.