What are the barriers to understanding pointers and what can be done to overcome them?

Posted by David McGraw on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by David McGraw
Published on 2008-08-08T06:17:51Z Indexed on 2010/04/10 12:03 UTC
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Why are pointers such a leading factor of confusion for many new, and even old, college level students in the C/C++ language? Are there any tools or thought processes that helped you understand how pointers work at the variable, function, and beyond level?

What are some good practice things that can be done to bring somebody to the level of, "Ah-hah, I got it," without getting them bogged down in the overall concept? Basically, drill like scenarios.

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What are the barriers to understanding pointers and what can be done to overcome them? - Developer IT

What are the barriers to understanding pointers and what can be done to overcome them?

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Related posts about pointers

C++ smart pointers: sharing pointers vs. sharing data

handling refrence to pointers/double pointers using SWIG [C++ to Java]

char pointers & integer pointers (++)

Smart pointers - cases where they cannot replace raw pointers

C++ Pointers: Number of levels of Indirection

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