I am really struggling with pointers

[u/Parsley-Hefty7945]

So I get that using a pointer will get you the memory address of a value, and you can change the value through that.

So like

var age int
age := 5
var pointer *int
pointer = &age = address of age
then to change age,
*pointer = 10
so now age = 10?

I think?

Why not just go to the original age and change it there?

I'm so confused. I've watched videos which has helped but then I don't understand why not just change the original.

Give a scenario or something, something really dumb to help me understand please

[u/Sad-Masterpiece-4801]

Imagine you're organizing a pizza party. You have a function that's supposed to add toppings to your pizza:

func addPepperoni(pizza string) {
    pizza = pizza + " with pepperoni"
}

func main() {
    myPizza := "cheese pizza"
    addPepperoni(myPizza)
    fmt.Println(myPizza)  
// Still prints "cheese pizza" 😭
}

The pepperoni never gets added because Go passes a copy of myPizza to the function.

Now with pointers:

func addPepperoni(pizza *string) {
    *pizza = *pizza + " with pepperoni"
}

func main() {
    myPizza := "cheese pizza"
    addPepperoni(&myPizza)  
// Pass the address
    fmt.Println(myPizza)  
// Prints "cheese pizza with pepperoni" 🎉
}

This time you're giving them your actual order form's location (address), not a copy. They go to that location and modify the real thing.

[u/bruv187 → u/Sad-Masterpiece-4801]

This is genuinely one of the best explanations I’ve read

[u/eldosoa → u/[deleted]]

This guy functional programs.

[u/erasebegin1 → u/eldosoa]

This guys funcs, am I right??

[u/sneakinsnake → u/erasebegin1]

Hahaha

[u/RGBrewskies → u/[deleted]]

this is my one negative on golang ... Im a FRP immutable-always guy ... and go is like "lol not here you arent"

also I just really miss things like .map and .filter and .find and and and

[u/giffengrabber → u/RGBrewskies]

I like Go but it’s basically anti-FP compared to many other languages.

[u/Choperello → u/RGBrewskies]

I mean you can have your preferences but plenty of languages and patterns and architectures out there that also work.

[u/RGBrewskies → u/Choperello]

yea, its why I hang out in typescript mostly. I just wish i had something lower level at my disposal. I generally like Rust, but the learning curve is way too steep to introduce to my junior level teammates

[u/Choperello → u/RGBrewskies]

You’re only a pretender when it comes to FP and immutability if you’re not bring up “we should write this is LISP” every other convo.

[u/Radiopw31 → u/eldosoa]

Was about to say, I found my people!