>First, you have to understand the implications of it being a pointer, which includes the little warning light in your head about ownership and allocation/deallocation
Thats a semantic issue, not a syntax/style one. If your language has pointer semantics, you’d need to a way to access it with either proposed styles, and the same warning light should appear regardless.
The w+ example is much more relevant, as it could be expressed more clearly and well-defined (eg enum with full name). But all you could do with the pointer syntax is say FILE POINTER test_file, and gain nothing, because the “*” syntax isn’t at fault here
Thats a semantic issue, not a syntax/style one. If your language has pointer semantics, you’d need to a way to access it with either proposed styles, and the same warning light should appear regardless.
The w+ example is much more relevant, as it could be expressed more clearly and well-defined (eg enum with full name). But all you could do with the pointer syntax is say FILE POINTER test_file, and gain nothing, because the “*” syntax isn’t at fault here