@BenI. so yes there are, probably, pointers at some point, but a reference is not necessaries it.

Ok. Then I'm back to where I was. I can take your overall point, but I disagree with "pointers are not fundamental in any way"

@BenI. so why did I say probably? Because the machine may not use them. If we use a stack machine, running a stack language, then there are no pointers. Though because it may be Turing complete, it could simulate them.

Ultimately, when you get down to the processor level, there are only pointers and computations.

Even the stack pointer is ultimately a pointer

If you said, "pointers are not just not fundamental to learning about how references work" I could see where you were going. But saying "pointers are not fundamental in any way" is not the same thing.

I would agree that pointer are fundamental to most architectures, most CPUs, with regard to how they work. But to what they do, then I think that they are not [fundamental].

Yes agree on your last statement

(BTW - putting this disagreement here aside, I'm looking over your answers generally, and I think you're a pretty great contributor!!)

Same

Were really trying to express "pointers are not just not fundamental to learning about how references work"?

?

I guess what I'm asking is can you edit your statement slightly to make clearer what you mean? (I work under the notion that if I misunderstood something, then I won't be the only one, especially since many thousands of people visit these pages every year)

Sometimes I think that when teaching that we need to start at the bottom. Other times I think we need to start at the top.

Yes I will have a look, and fix it.

=)

☺

@richard Thanks!!

@richard I lean toward start at the bottom, with the important distinction that I don't consider it a barrier to answering any high-level question the student may have. I just consider it the best approach to making a professional who understands in depth what he (or she) is dealing with.

You don't get that level of professional skill in coding camps that "teach 6 languages in 6 weeks" or whatever the claim may be. I have nothing against such programs and they do produce people who can write code. Whether they can easily adapt what they've learned to new languages and tomorrow's architecture may be a different matter.

By analogy: A power plant technician who knows only the exact maintenance techniques in his equipment manuals and doesn't understand electricity or physics, will be unable to adapt when the plant gets all new equipment that works entirely differently. But the technician who understands what he is doing and how it relates to transforming the voltage and modifying the current in other ways, will be able to adapt. The first technician is still employable, but he won't remain so.