Why the need for an only const ref?

[Janice Caron]

On Dec 3, 2007 2:14 PM, Christopher Wright <dhasenan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Right...now just make sure your modules are small. People using this
> tactic don't have many friends.

What's the problem? Read references to buffer get turned into calls to
buffer(), and those get /inlined/ by the compiler back to
straightfoward reads of buffer_ (which is private). Write references
are syntax errors.

Seems to me it works a treat. Why does this not make you happy?