BL> Everyone sneers at goto, but pointers are a hundred
BL> times worse for making a program inscrutable,

Thats crap Bob. Sure, pointers are one of those things that are indeed
a problem for learners, you need to get them thoroughly understood, and
thats not always trivial for some people. *BUT*, the difference is that
with GOTOs you can be extremely fluent with them, and shit code that uses
them a lot is STILL completely impenetrable. Thats not true of pointers.
which actually make the code MUCH more readable when used properly.

BL> and they have the added problem of making it mostly unpredictable
BL> if you get just one thing wrong, even a typing error...

Yes, C is one of those languages that assumes you know what you are
doing and doesnt impose the trainer wheels mentality that Pascal etc
does. Corse the benefit there is that if you do want to do something
succinctly, you can. Usually those higher safety languages make life
harder when doing basic stuff.

BL> and usually, the first warning you get is when the bloody thing locks up.

Sure, pointers are indeed rather dangerous if you stuff up, and they
can indeed be difficult to debug when you have. *BUT* they are just
another example of the same thing, they give you LOTS of power when you
need it, at the expense of requiring you to know what you are doing.

There aint no free lunch.

--- PQWK202