I used C++ references a few times one upon a time. I was not sold on the utility of them in the company of pointers. OTOH, I use references extensively in PHP: passing references to structures and objects is much faster than copying them.

However, both constructs require the programmer be vigilant. Global variables in PHP are implemented "behind the scenes" with references, for example, which the programmer has to be alert to to avoid some types of obscure bugs.

Wade.