Thanks for your answer. Call me old-fashioned, but I actually think the separate compilation model is a good thing: it makes it possible to delegate the build

Thanks for your answer. Call me old-fashioned, but I actually think the separate compilation model is a good thing: it makes it possible to delegate the build process to a mostly language agnostic tool, and to mix languages easily (C, C++, D) in the same project. About the implementation details internal to the class: the 'private' keyword is the problem, not the header files. If you want polymorphism, why not just use an abstract base class - as you would have had a layer of indirection anyway. If you don't want polymorphism, just use "handle" types. Am I missing something?