What is the point of pointers?

Question

What is the point of pointers in C++ when I can just declare variables? When is it appropriate to use them?

Answer 1

Pointers are also great for passing a mutable argument to a function so that the caller can "see the change". You may wonder, "but why not use a reference?". I like Google's argument:

http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml#Reference_Arguments