But the fact that they are programming in an environment where everything is a pointer is hidden to the them. In C++ one needs to explicitly use pointers whereas in Java all of the pointers are handled behind the scenes.
Not really. In Java it's a leaky abstraction - it's true that the JVM does a lot of micromanagement for you, but if you are careless you start getting exceptions (best case scenario) or start to get mysterious changes in your data (worst case scenario).
I agree with grandparent that understanding what a pointer is and that almost everything in a Java program is a pointer it's critical for a Java programmer.
