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

In addition to points others make (esp. w.r.t. controlling the object lifetime), if you need to handle NULL objects, you should use pointers, not references. It's possible to create a NULL reference through typecasting, but it's generally a bad idea.