Hiding class pointers -- was it a good idea?

[Walter Bright]

eao197 wrote:
>  From my expirience this is a problem of C++ beginners.

I was talking to a person who is a C++ developer for a major game 
company just today. He told me that it is very difficult to find 
experienced C++ developers, hire them, or even recognize them in a job 
interview. When you are able to hire them, they cost plenty.

It's true that every problem with C++ can be solved by getting more 
advanced C++ programmers. The problem is getting those C++ programmers. 
And even the best ones have bad days and make mistakes <g>.

Defining a problem out of existence is preferable, cheaper, and more 
reliable than depending on convention or more training.

If I was paying top dollar for a programming expert, I'd rather he 
focused his energies on something more productive than dodging C++'s 
potholes.

If I was in charge of writing software that absolutely, positively must 
work correctly, I'll prefer a language guarantee over reliance that my 
programmers, no matter how good they are, didn't overlook something.