Prefer simple and conventional ways of passing information

Reason

Using "unusual and clever" techniques causes surprises, slows understanding by other programmers, and encourages bugs. If you really feel the need for an optimization beyond the common techniques, measure to ensure that it really is an improvement, and document/comment because the improvement might not be portable.

The following tables summarize the advice in the following Guidelines, F.16-21.

Normal parameter passing:


Advanced parameter passing:


Use the advanced techniques only after demonstrating need, and document that need in a comment.

For passing sequences of characters see String.

Exception

To express shared ownership using shared_ptr types, rather than following guidelines F.16-21, follow R.34, R.35, and R.36.