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Go Language

Nicholas Gaerlan
Nicholas Gaerlan
9,501 Points
Posted by Nicholas Gaerlan
Nicholas Gaerlan
9,501 Points

Why bother with pointers?

I remember learning C++ a long time ago and thinking that pointers were a normal thing, but then after learning Python and some JS, I wonder why bother with pointers at all? It seems like it would be better to declare a global variable, or offer a way to access another objects' parameter through dot notation. Also, is garbage collection somehow easier when you use pointers? Just wondering why a modern language like Go would choose to keep this.

2 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,288 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,288 Points

Languages have different features, and it's nearly always possible to compensate for missing features using other techniques with a bit of extra code, time and memory. But pointers tie directly into underlying hardware operations and make it possible for code to be very efficient in terms of memory and execution-time, which are among the original objectives of the development of the Go language.

But even though Go has pointers, the implementation is somewhat simplified compared to languages like C++. Go has no pointer arithmetic features, for example.

And I don't believe having pointers is related to having garbage collection.

Andrew Calhoun
Andrew Calhoun
19,360 Points
Andrew Calhoun
Andrew Calhoun
19,360 Points

I know this thread is a bit older, but pointers are by and large a relic from a period when we needed to be economical with data and literally point to an address in the memory. They're useful for embedded programming and small devices with limited memory and processing power.

We also use them in graphics and games, to help make things more efficient.

For most high level languages, pointers are handled by a wrapper within the language itself, so that we don't necessarily need to worry about it. It is still a good skill to at least develop a familiarity with, because of the intricacies of memory management.