I go one step further - the interesting part of the type has to be mentioned in a form that you can click on and do a Go To Definition (etc.). So auto foo=FooFa

I go one step further - the interesting part of the type has to be mentioned in a form that you can click on and do a Go To Definition (etc.). So auto foo=FooFactory::newFromBar(bar) is no good, because you can't click on the exact type newFromBar is returning. But you might say auto thing=GenericFactory::Create<Thing>(), and that's OK, because you can click on the identifier Thing. (The point about the 'interesting' part is to permit stuff like std::unqiue_ptr<T> F<T>() and the like.)