[msla]

> For some reason most people seem to be born without the part of the brain that understands pointers.

If you can understand P.O. box numbers, you can understand pointers. They're the same concept at the level of modern application programming, where the OS, MMU, and cache are comprehensively lying to your code to present the illusion of a completely flat address space. At that level, all a pointer is is a box number, and you can say things like "Get me the thing in box number 23" or "Get me the thing in box number 42 and the three boxes after it, put those four things together into a number and then get the four things at that box number and the three boxes after it" and, while the second thing is involved, it's straightforwards and it is precisely the kind of double-indirected thinking Joel is talking about.

To get a bit deeper, you can use the old "Paging Game", also known as the story of the Thing King, to introduce virtual memory:

http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/documentation/th...

This is wrong in almost every specific detail when it comes to modern systems, as it dates from circa 1972-1974, but you only need to change a few numbers around and it's good enough in a lies-to-children sense. The only substantial change that would be required is if you want to mention ASLR.

And that's it. That's it until they actually get intimate with a specific hardware architecture and OS and learn very specific, rather ephemeral details. Pointers just aren't all that special.

[Asooka]

Yes, and then you have to make people understand that box [number 23] is itself in a box and 23 can change at any time. And you can ask for the thing in box [the thing in box [the thing in box [the number that was passed to this function]]]. It's a double and sometimes triple indirection and understanding that pointers and the things pointed to are the same kind of data is the hard part. It's numbers all the way down.

[throwawaymath]

You're making a strong point here, which is that every real world analogy of pointers breaks down since everything is data. But I'm still not sold on the idea that pointers are intrinsically a "make it or break it" topic for people to learn.

In fact, I'm resistant to that sort of conclusion in general. I don't really think there are things that people of average intelligence can't learn, given enough time and pedagogy. And I say that as someone with a background in mathematics, which is one area most typically associated with people "not getting it."

If people don't learn pointers, it could be because they're not sufficiently motivated or don't have it presented to them the right way. It could be that the overuse of analogies does them a disservice, and they really just need to pick up a book. Whatever the case may be, I'd hesitate to say it can't be learned by any population of people.