Re: pointers to variables
- Posted by LarryMiller Aug 01, 2009
- 1254 views
Welcome back to Euphoria. I am sure that many on this forum would see the lack of pointers as a major advantage. Pointers would certainly simplify some applications but have some serious problems, not the least of them being the great possibility for abuse. A high level language like Euphoria isolates the value of a variable from it's physical representation. This allows the interpreter to change either the address of a variable or how it is internally represented. If Euphoria allowed pointers to variables this flexibility would be lost. There is also the possibility that some details of internal representation may change in future versions. This would break any application that used pointers.
I believe that interfacing to C and assembly can, and should be, improved. At present there is no concensus on how this can best be accomplished. But pointers are not the best way to do this.
Do feel free to suggest any other improvements to the language.
