Pointers (smart or raw or whatever) get used when you need reference semantics. It's true that value semantics are usually better but not always (eg inheritance

Pointers (smart or raw or whatever) get used when you need reference semantics. It's true that value semantics are usually better but not always (eg inheritance). To be sure, though, being able to make proper value types is a strength of C++. Also we should point out most non-trivial value types make extensive (and necessary!) use of the heap under the hood (eg string, vector)