Beginner's use of system("pause");

[Paul McKenzie]

As long as I've been around here, I've seen lots of beginners use

  system("pause");

Other points you didn't bring up:

1) Some joker could write a "pause" program that erases files. I've heard that this has already been done at one university.

2) If the student is testing the workings of construction and destruction of global objects, "pause" will not work as the pause is done before the closing main() brace is hit. There have been a few threads here where the student is tripped up because they put "pause" in their program.

Regards,

Paul McKenzie