Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!hc!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Arrays and pointers
Message-ID: <3968@lanl.gov>
Date: 21 Sep 88 20:40:42 GMT
References: <1030@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 22

From article <1030@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>, by fouts@lemming.nas.nasa.gov.nas.nasa.gov (Marty Fouts):
> [...]                                        Now add to it the
> notational convenience of using pointers when they make the code
> clearer to read then array references.  [...]

That is - _NEARLY_NEVER_!!  A pointer is a way of placing the structural
template defined by a data type over an arbitrary memory location.  
                                                                 ^
PERIOD!!  That's all a pointer is for.  If I don't need that functionality,
I also don't want any pointers!  You're right in your argument: the purpose
of a programming language is to provide convenient and readable access
to the functionality of the machine.  You're wrong in your conclusion:
pointers (especially the C syntax) usually obscure the meaning of the
code because they are used to implement functionality that's inappropriate
to them.

By the way, the use of pointers in the above way _is_ sometimes useful
and should be provided in the language.  But it shouldn't be used to
implement other things for which it is _not_ appropriate.

J. Giles
Los Alamos