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Antoine Guenet
2,843 PointsWhy is everything a pointer in Object-oriented programming ?
Around 6:30, Mr Turner says everything is a pointer in object-oriented programming. Why is that ?
2 Answers
agreatdaytocode
24,757 PointsAntoine,
In computer science, a pointer is a programming language object, whose value refers to (or "points to") another value stored elsewhere in the computer memory using its address. A pointer references a location in memory, and obtaining the value stored at that location is known as dereferencing the pointer.
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I hope that helps.
Antoine Guenet
2,843 PointsThanks Aaron. I'm following the whole course on ObjectiveC Basics so I watched and understood the one on pointers. What I don't understand is why in ObjectiveC (as opposed to C) we suddenly use pointers for everything, or as Mr Turner says in the video : "everything is a pointer" (with no further explanation).
Shkodran Gerguri
1,114 PointsI'd wager a guess - it's because it was the most straightforward way to implement objects on top of C.
Kelsey Jones
911 PointsI'm guessing it has to do with handling memory when creating applications. Just a way to make running them a bitter better and easier on the developer. Also, he mentions that Obj-C scales well in comparison to C. Maybe pointers are a factor. Again, these are just ideas. I'd like to know as well, though.