I'd say 1) is completely tractable, politically or not. If you're careful, "everything has a size." Only use an opaque pointer if there's... metadata that force

I'd say 1) is completely tractable, politically or not. If you're careful, "everything has a size." Only use an opaque pointer if there's... metadata that forces correct usage. But this is up to you to enforce. 2) & 3) are pretty much covered in undergrad CS programs. If it hurts, you're doing it wrong - you don't have to dip that deeply in to OO to find excellent patterns for solving it, of you even need to go that far. On certain platforms like the Win32 API, 2) &3) are hopeless by, it seems, design. Just do your best then :)