Mastering C++ Programming

Issues with raw pointers

The majority of the C++ developers have something in common: all of us love to code complex stuff. You ask a developer, "Hey dude, would you like to reuse code that already exists and works or would you like to develop one yourself?" Though diplomatically, most developers will say to reuse what is already there when possible, their heart will say, "I wish I could design and develop it myself." Complex data structure and algorithms tend to call for pointers. Raw pointers are really cool to work with until you get into trouble.

Raw pointers must be allocated with memory before use and require deallocation once done; it is that simple. However, things get complicated in a product where pointer allocation may happen in ...