c++: when to use pointers?

Question

After reading some tutorials I came to the conclusion that one should always use pointers for objects. But I have also seen a few exceptions while reading some QT tutorials

Answer 1

Main reasons for using pointers:

1. control object lifetime;
2. can't use references (e.g. you want to store something non-copyable in vector);
3. you should pass pointer to some third party function;
4. maybe some optimization reasons, but I'm not sure.