steven@cwi.nl (Steven Pemberton) (10/12/90)
I find it alarming to read some of the defences of pointers in this group, especially coming from some of the people I consider Clear Thinkers :-) When you program, you want to attain a certain result. To do that you program using certain data-structures. If you are lucky, the data-structures are supplied as standard in the language and if not, you have to build them with the tools supplied. If the language is C, (or Algol 68) and you want to build a graph, you will almost certainly need pointers, because that's all you've got. But that is not to say that pointers are the Best Solution. As the Hermes people point out, there are better abstractions (if pointers can be called an abstraction at all) for implementing new data-structures. You may end up doing things that look like pointer manipulation, but there are distinct advantages. Check out "The ABC Programmer's Handbook" [plug] by Leo Geurts et.al, Prentice Hall, and the section on Common Data-Structures. There you will see examples of data-structures normally implemented with pointers (like trees and graphs) without a single pointer in sight. As they say, if your only tool is a hammer, all your problems look like nails. Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@cwi.nl "Let us go then you and I/while the night is laid out against the sky/like a smear of mustard on an old pork pie" Nice poem Tom. I have ideas for changes though, why not come over? - Ezra