I learned BASIC, then Pascal, then C. I had a terrible time understanding pointers, until one day it clicked, and ever since that point I have a terrible time understanding how anyone could not understand pointers.

I don't think having difficulty understanding pointers is anything new. I was struggling with them in the early 90s, and there was plenty of literature out there talking about how to understand them and how people had trouble with them. But I can't help you understand why people have trouble, because I don't know myself.

I had the same opinion at one point. Like you said, the concept of pointers is very simple, but it can get confusing in application, as you start dealing with more levels of indirection. Try coding something/understanding code that requires triple star pointers, then you'll see why they're confusing.

Easy, just grab a pencil and paper, draw the data structures and you're done.

Again, maybe it just shows my age, as I started coding with BASIC and Z80 assembly.

My first programming language where I used pointers was 68000 and they were easy for me to grasp, but for some reason it was harder when I started using C and everytime I get back to C or C++ I need a little refresher.

For me it is the syntax used by C for pointers that makes it confusing.

> For me it is the syntax used by C for pointers that makes it confusing.

Personally I don't see much difference between * (C way), ^ (Pascal way) or ref (Algol way).

Or do you mean the declaration order ?

int* ptr; (right to left)

ptr = ^Integer /ref int ptr (left to right)

Yes, it is probably the declaration order which confuses me.