The Exhilarating World of C++ Pointer Indirection

The difference between `int*` and `int**` is the difference between knowing where the treasure is buried and knowing who has the map

Senior rule of thumb: if the code review shows an int** escaping the module boundary, the next sprint is already called 'rewrite-in-Rust'

After 20 years in the industry, I've realized the true horror isn't managing triple pointers in production code - it's explaining to the junior why their int** segfaults when they treat it like int* because 'they're both just addresses, right?'

The progression from int to int*** perfectly captures the moment when you realize the previous developer's 'elegant solution' involves passing pointers to pointers to pointers through a callback chain - and now you're the one who has to debug the segfault that only appears in production on Tuesdays. It's the systems programming equivalent of opening a matryoshka doll and finding increasingly cursed memory addresses inside

If your API needs int**, you're not passing a value - you're negotiating custody

int**: because single indirection wasn't spawning enough malloc/realloc therapy sessions

int, int*, int** pointing at each other - the C API blame graph for ownership: value blames pointer, pointer blames pointer-to-pointer, and the segfault writes the postmortem