I usually use three patterns for memory management and they seem to work: - copy by value for small datums - store large datums in shared-ptrs if pointer acce

I usually use three patterns for memory management and they seem to work: - copy by value for small datums - store large datums in shared-ptrs if pointer access speed will not cause a bottleneck - Relational model: I use large database objects for storing inter referencing objects - i.e. I don't use any pointer type for storing refences in large interlinked structures but handles such as indices or map keys. I agree, trying to implement borrow checking or garbage collection 'quickly' through the type system in C++ usually leads to a world of pain. Better designed languages offer poor intuition to C++ in this sense because the examples in those languages leverage the well designed type system. If one wants to do advanced stuff in C++ the correct way is to model that in the program code and not through clever constructor tweaks.