and there, my friend, is the downfall - many people give examples without sufficient context, leaving the asker more confused than before. I'm not pointing fingers, I've done it as well.
It's hard to put our heads in the head of a novice when he/she hasn't given us the first clue about any programming experience. If you come to me and say 'all I've ever programmed in is Basic, what's this pointer stuff ', it's a whole lot easier than 'what's this pointer stuff" with zero frame of reference.