Examples in Go
In Go, variables are explicitly declared and used by the compiler to e.g. check type-correctness of function calls.
package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    // var declares 1 or more variables.
    var a = "initial"
    fmt.Println(a)

    // You can declare multiple variables at once.
    var b, c int = 1, 2
    fmt.Println(b, c)

    // Go will infer the type of initialized variables.
    var d = true
    fmt.Println(d)

    // Variables declared without a corresponding initialization are zero-valued.
    // For example, the zero value for an int is 0.
    var e int
    fmt.Println(e)

    // The := syntax is shorthand for declaring and initializing a variable.
    f := "apple"
    fmt.Println(f)
}
A pointer is a programming language object that stores the memory address of another value located in computer memory.
package main

import "fmt"

func zeroval(ival int) {
    ival = 0
}

func zeroptr(iptr *int) {
    *iptr = 0
}

func main() {
    i := 1
    fmt.Println("initial:", i)

    zeroval(i)
    fmt.Println("zeroval:", i)

    zeroptr(&i)
    fmt.Println("zeroptr:", i)

    fmt.Println("pointer:", &i)
}