Hiding class pointers -- was it a good idea?

[Walter Bright]

James Dennett wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> C++ is loaded with idioms and conventions to try and head off major
>> problems. I'd rather snip off such problems at the source - for one
>> reason, it will dramatically reduce the learning curve of the language.
>> For another, the more guarantees the language can offer, the lesser a
>> burden it is on the code auditor, and the more likely the code is to be
>> correct.
> 
> Valid points, though removing expressive power tends to move
> the complexity into code, and it's hard to remove the power
> to write bad code without also removing the power to write
> great code.

The counterexample I'd give is that D classes tend to be implementable 
with much less complex code than C++ classes.