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Binky Pointer Video

sedthh

720 subscribers • 1 video on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 3 people: 3 in engineering communities.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2018 to 2025.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

67K views19 years ago3 recommendations

Programming languagesComputer scienceCData structures

A classic animated explanation of how pointers and memory allocation work, demonstrating basic pointer rules and pitfalls.

this video is not mine it belongs to cslibrary.stanford.edu/ "A silly but memorable 3 minute animated video demonstrating the basic structure, techniques, and pitfalls of using pointers. There are separate versions of the video for C, Java, C++, Pascal, and Ada. There is also a more traditional companion text (below) that goes with the video, and a brief history of how the video was made." source: cslibrary.stanford.edu/

Why it's here

3 people recommend this

What people say. Widely recommended as a memorable, beginner-friendly claymation introduction to understanding pointers.

u/greenspansin r/C_Programming • Recommends

On “Is the "The C Programming Language" book suitable for beginners?”

how about modern C http://icube-icps.unistra.fr/img_auth.php/d/db/ModernC.pdf Who cares what book you use. Learn enough to get ideas, try to implement the ideas. Then come back to reading. Use multiple sources. Use IRC, stackoverflow, google, when you have questions. You aren't the first or last person to get confused with pointers. There's a lot of clarification documents online, even on youtube. This is binky the clay pointer animation from 1999 link to this video http://cslibrary.stanford.edu/
5View on Reddit

u/CodingWithChadin r/C_Programming • Recommends

On “What do you think about teaching my 1yo kid, C as his first language instead of english?”

Here is some kid centered pointer videos: link to this video
2View on Reddit

u/WiseassWolfOfYoitsuin r/C_Programming • Recommends

On “Can anyone explain pointers to me like I’m 5?”

Pointer Fun with Binky! You said like you were 5, claymation seems appropriate :D
1View on Reddit

u/ModernRoninin r/C_Programming • Mentions

On “Linked List of Strings”

struct Node { char *data; struct Node *next; } *head; char * nextItem() { struct Node cur_ptr = cur_ptr->next; return cur_ptr->data; } In Struct node, **next** is a pointer. In nextItem, **cur_ptr** is not a pointer at all, it is a struct. Also, you're creating a variable called "cur_ptr" and when variables are first created, they're full of random bits. You've just created a Node struct full of random garbage and then tried to use "->" on it as if it were a valid... anything. But it isn't. You should watch Pointer Fun With Binky.
5View on Reddit