Pointers in c

Question

Is pointers used necessarily for some programms or they just speed up and optimize the code?
Can I deal with c programming without using any pointers?

Answer 1

Not knowing pointers is kind of a shot in the foot, since they are kind of important. For a long time, I didn't get them either, and now that I do, it's really great. You can change variables with functions, make a function have any return type, and so on

Answer 2

Without the idea of pointers you wouldn't have some dynamic datastructures too, so they are very necessary for optimizing and abstractioning. They alone do not speed up anything

Answer 3

you can't deal with memory management without pointer

Answer 4

So they are USED FOR optimization but you can write slow and unoptimized code in c that do the same work slower (without pointers)?

Answer 5

No. If you didn't read anything, everyone was saying that it doesn't really speed it up, and that you miss out on essencial parts.

Answer 6

So are pointers important or no?

Answer 7

They are.