Absolutely. Having learned Pascal before C, I really missed pass-by-reference for quite some time. Efficiency wise, a reference is just a hidden pointer, BUT,

Absolutely. Having learned Pascal before C, I really missed pass-by-reference for quite some time. Efficiency wise, a reference is just a hidden pointer, BUT, it is nice to know that the reference CANNOT be null. The caller of a routine expecting a reference must have actual data to pass, or the routine never gets called. C is a very handy portable assembler, though.