Thanks 7stud, so basically its quicker than automatic garbage collection?
Thanks 7stud, so basically its quicker than automatic garbage collection?
It is faster but also more convenient. For example you don't want garbage collection when your program is in the middle of a time sensitive operation. I program in Visual Basic.net in addition to c++. VB.net garbage collection works alot like java garbage collection. The main point is that doing things manually is almost always better but people tend to put fixing memory leaks at the bottom of the list so to speak. So in languages like Java and .net they force "good" pratices which solves a number of issues but also has costs in the area of speed.
Any programmer who believes this should be banned from ever writing anything more complicated then hello world.Originally Posted by disks86
Doing things manually is almost always worse. Compilers are there to do work for you, not create work.
This is why we have things like smart pointers.
"I saw a sign that said 'Drink Canada Dry', so I started"
-- Brendan Behan
Free Compiler: Visual C++ 2005 Express
If you program in C++, you need Boost. You should also know how to use the Standard Library (STL). Want to make games? After reading this, I don't like WxWidgets anymore.Want to add some scripting to your App?
I'd say the most common reasion to use pointers is to get-around the fact that a function can only return one value.
And, like 7stud said, when you pass a variable into a function, you only pass it's value, not the variable itself. If you change a variable inside a function, you are NOT changing the original value. You are only changing the local copy, which may not be what you want!
Most books introduce pointers with a swap(X,Y) function... You have two variables and you need to swap their values. Because of the above limitations, you cannot change two values without using pointers (or references*). With the addresses passed into the function, the function can affect more than one variable.
The same is true with arrays. If you want your function to affect more than one element in the array, you need the address of the array.
*In C++ (but not C) you can also use references. References are another way to "get-to" a variable outside of the function. References are generally preferred over pointers when, they can be used.
