Triple pointers in C: is it a matter of style?

Question

I feel like triple pointers in C are looked at as \"bad\". For me, it makes sense to use them at times.

Starting from the basics, the single pointer

Answer 1

Unfortunately you misunderstood the concept of pointer and arrays in C. Remember that arrays are not pointers.

Starting from the basics, the single pointer has two purposes: to create an array, and to allow a function to change its contents (pass by reference):

When you declare a pointer, then you need to initialize it before using it in the program. It can be done either by passing address of a variable to it or by dynamic memory allocation.
In latter, pointer can be used as indexed arrays (but it is not an array).

The double pointer can be a 2D array (or array of arrays, since each "column" or "row" need not be the same length). I personally like to use it when I need to pass a 1D array:

Again wrong. Arrays are not pointers and vice-versa. A pointer to pointer is not the 2D array.
I would suggest you to read the c-faq section 6. Arrays and Pointers.