[ahoka]

That's... not true?

Example in C:

void fun(void) {

    int a[16];

    for (int i = 0; i < sizeof(a); i++)
    {
        a[i] = 1;
    }

}

I have allocated and referred to memory without pointers here.

[defrost]

in some form or another is the key to their point.

Here's something to try at home .. exactly your code save for this change:

    i[a] = 1;

... guess what, still compiles, still works !!

WTF ??? you ask, well, you see, X[Y] is just syntactic sugar for X+Y - it's a pointer operation disguised to look like a rose (but it smells just the same).