[KellyCriterion]

> I'm sure many people here got into programming precisely because abstract thinking came easily to them.

Counter here: When I wanted to switch from TurboPascal during school (14y/15y) to C++ (because it was "more cool" and that was the tool that the 'big boy' game-dev-pros were, we thought), it was so damn hard for me - really! I was struggling so massivly, I head massive problems with this pointer stuff - it took me years to fully understand it.

And I was hell-bad at math in school (or maybe just too lazy), the only thing to which I a relation was all this geometric stuff (because this was needed for .. game dev! :-D )

[Zak]

Pointers are famously difficult to learn and reason about even though the basic principles are simple. Programming in a style that requires direct manipulation of pointers when it's not actually necessary is usually regarded as unwise because it's so hard to get right.

[mhjkl]

OP had no problem with pointers prior to trying C++. I think there is a case to be made that C(++) makes pointers unnecessarily confusing and there is no real disconnect between understanding pointers in theory and in practice otherwise

[joquarky]

And C++ makes everything extra confusing with the capability of operator overloading.

That has to be one of the worst features ever added to a language.

[avadodin]

> C++ makes everything extra confusing

[NooneAtAll3]

> I head massive problems with this pointer stuff

no, OP explicitly had problem after getting introduced to pointer concept

[t-3]

Pointers aren't hard, it's C/C++ that make them complicated. Addresses and indirection in any assembly language are simple and straightforward, easy and even intuitive once you start actually writing programs.

[account42]

C and C++ pointers aren't any harder than pointers in assembly, at least as far as novices complaining about pointers being hard are concerned.

[t-3]

They are though! Indirection in assembly is just something like:

  ldr dest, [src, offset]

It's straightforward and pretty hard to mess up, and easy to read to because the format is consistent.

Whereas in C all the following are valid (and it becomes even more confusing with assignment in the declaration statement, tons of footguns and weird syntax):

  int* a;
  int *a;
  int a[];
  int a[5];

Assignment is weird too, especially because dereferencing and defining a pointer both use '*'.

  *a   = c;
  a[0] = c;

Then you have structs/unions and their members, and what if those are pointers? You get . and -> syntax. It's weird and complicated, much much more complicated than assembly. That's before you get to casting and types which make C much more complicated than assembly for doing low level stuff.

[phist_mcgee]

Tell that to the thousands of comp sci students who drop out every year because they don't like programming in C!

[t-3]

I used to think I was incapable of learning "real" programming because I didn't get C. When I later read a book on programming in assembly, I realized that everything that had felt so complex was actually not so difficult. C pointer syntax is weird and doesn't parse naturally for many people, especially programming novices who might not yet have a solid grasp on what/how/why they're doing anything.

[neutronicus]

Right, but it's hard to tell how much confusion is caused by C syntax vs the idea of a memory address.

In particular I think people are very confused by declaring pointers and the overloaded meaning of the dereference operator.

[KellyCriterion]

...thats the reason why I love managed environments like C#/Java/etc :-))