Comment by themafia

> You can apply the "*" operator as many times you want, but applying "address-of" twice is meaningless.

This is due to the nature of lvalue and rvalue expressions. You can only get an object where * is meaningful twice if you've applied & meaningfully twice before.

    int a = 42;
    int *b = &a;
    int **c = &b;

I've applied & twice. I merely had to negotiate with the language instead of the parser to do so.

> and all these 3 postfix operators can appear an unlimited number of times in an expression.

In those cases the operator is immediately followed by a non-operator token. I cannot meaningfully write a[][1], or b..field.

> The only reason why they have chosen "*" as prefix in C, which they later regretted, was because it seemed easier to define the expressions "++p" and "p++" to have the desired order of evaluation.

It not only seems easier it is easier. What you sacrifice is complications is defining function pointers. One is far more common than the other. I think they got it right.

> With a postfix "*", the operator "->" would have been superfluous.

Precisely the reason I dislike the Pascal**.Style. Go offers a better mechanism anyways. Just use "." and let the language work out what that means based on types.

I'm offering a subjective point of view. I don't like the way that looks or reads or mentally parses. I'm much happier to occasionally struggle with function pointers.