Comment by pandaman

I am not sure what you mean, it's not like we cast integers to pointers by hand is it? The compiler does the casting. And sure, there is usually no support from the compiler when you are programming any device other than the CPU but these devices need to be programmed. For you to read this message somebody had to program the display device and for you to even be able to access this web site somebody had to program a whole bunch of things starting from your NIC, going through various routers and to the different NIC on the HN's server. No compiler had been able to do this so far.