Quote Originally Posted by danielmarshall View Post
I try to avoid using pointers directly in my data structures for that very reason, although if you follow sound software engineering practices you shouldn't need to worry about writing to unallocated memory etc... That said, it is altogether too easy to put one extra asterix in where it doesn't belong.
For sure, but pointer arithmetic sits at the heart of most DSP.

It's one of the few things that elevates C++ above managed code.

Quote Originally Posted by danielmarshall View Post
Anyway what I was getting at is that there is almost always a tool more powerful than the one you're using (Native ASM trumps C++ in fact!), but it is often times not the tool that is the most suited to the job. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. There are so many other deep and powerful tools that take as much time to learn, but provide allot more in the long run. Time is a scarse commodity to me, so I spend it learning the things that will provide the most eventual benifit.

Just my opinion of course, and there are many cases where Reaktor, MSP or proprietry software do fill gaps that just can't be filled otherwise, but they are the exception to the rule.
Completely agree.