> Where C++ gives you many slightly different takes on the same concept (e.g. unique_ptr, shared_ptr and raw pointers), C gives you one way to go and that one has a conveniently compact notation (such as float ). You use unique_ptr and shared_ptr because float is unsafe. If you don't care about the safety that smart pointers provide, you can use float* in C++ too. > ticking with the example of matrix math, it is baff…
Can someone tell me what it means that "float is unsafe"? I'd never heard about that.
It's actually float* - which is a pointer to a float (hn's formatting can eat these sometimes)
example:
float* f = GetF();
// In a C world, you rely on the documentation to tell you how long f is valid for.
SomeFunc(*f);
// We _know_ this is safe.
std::unique_ptr f = GetF();
SomeFunc(*f.get());