C & C++

True. Real c++ development should rely on smart pointers as much as possible. Having said that, a student should still learn what a pointer is and how to manually manage it to understand better what the "smart" part of smart pointers does.

From the other post from OP, it doesn't look like this is the purpose of the assignment. So, I think it's more of a case of using old software that cannot handle c++11.