overview the new operator any object in java must be created using new howeverin javanew returns referencenot pointer as in +thuspointers aren' necessary to use new here' one way to create an objectbankaccount ba ba new bankaccount()eliminating pointers makes for more secure system as programmeryou can' find out the actual address of ba so you can' accidentally corrupt it howeveryou probably don' need to know itunless you're planning something wicked how do you release memory that you've acquired from the system with new and no longer needin ++you use delete in javayou don' need to worry about releasing memory java periodically looks through each block of memory that was obtained with new to see if valid references to it still exist if there are no such referencesthe block is returned to the free memory store this process is called garbage collection in +almost every programmer at one time or another forgets to delete memory blockscausing "memory leaksthat consume system resourcesleading to bad performance and even crashing the system memory leaks can' happen in java (or at least hardly everarguments in ++pointers are often used to pass objects to functions to avoid the overhead of copying large object in javaobjects are always passed as references this approach also avoids copying the objectvoid method (bankaccount ba new bankaccount( )method (ba )void method (bankaccount acctin this codethe references ba and acct both refer to the same object in +acct would be separate objectcopied from ba primitive data typeson the other handare always passed by value that isa new variable is created in the method and the value of the argument is copied into it