What is the point of pointers?

Question

What is the point of pointers in C++ when I can just declare variables? When is it appropriate to use them?

Answer 1

From an architectural perspective, pointers are an economical way to model a 0 .. n relationship:

struct A {
  vector *pBees;
  A() : pBees(nullptr) {}
  void notice_bee(const B *pB) { 
    if (!pBees)
      pBees = new vector;
    pBees.push_back(pB)
  }
  ~A() { 
    delete pBees; // no need to test, delete nullptr is safe
  }
  size_t bees_noticed() { return pBees ? pBees->size : 0 }
};

If the vast majority of A objects will never need to pay attention to any B objects, there is no reason why every A object should have a zero-length vector. Under Gnu C++ 4.0.1, sizeof(vector) is 12; sizeof(vector *) is 4.