Hiding class pointers -- was it a good idea?

[Gregor Richards]

OK, OK, I guess I should respond with an argument from computer science 
as well :)

In the normal definition of Object Orientation, an object is a means of 
storing a context in which operations can be performed. The abstraction 
behind this (yay we're modeling the universe in code but realistically 
we aren't yay) is irrelevant, as fundamentally OO is just a means of 
storing and passing contexts. Because this is a context, it makes no 
sense whatsoever to pass it around with duplication - duplicating 
contexts is nonsense.

structs are sort of a hack for compatibility and/or optimization. They 
are not contexts, they are means of creating more complicated values. 
While a "Point" could be a struct, really being a more complicated 
value, an "NPC" would always be a class, since it is a context.

The fact that this is inconsistent with C++ is irrelevant: D is more to 
the spirit of good OO.

  - Gregor Richards