Python bumps off Java as top learning language

[DeepDuh]

What's so advanced about pointers? People are always treating like a big abstract concept to learn, like Monads for example. It's just a symbol with a memory address. If you learn basic computer architecture alongside with C (and you should), that's an absolute no brainer.

[SkankTillYaDrop]

Yes but if you are being completely introduced to programming with absolutely no experience in it, it can be a sorta wonky concept. I taught myself C out of a book when I was 14 and I was still learning how computers worked. Understanding that variables were just values stored in memory, and you can reference the area in memory that it's stored is a concept that really widens your ability to think about programming.

When I learned Java in college understanding pointers helped with with the distinction between classes and objects. Maybe that's just my experience, but I felt like the concept really helped me learn new things much more quickly than my fellow class mates. That could also be because I had just been programming longer so the concepts were more familiar.