Hiding class pointers -- was it a good idea?

[Gregor Richards]

#1 advantage of making them always by-value: Ridiculously inconsistent 
use of by-value passing, ref passing and pointer passing.

void foo(Thing a);
void foo(ref Thing a);
void foo(Thing *a);

Wait, that's not an advantage at all, that's C++.

  - Gregor Richards