[JonChesterfield]

I believe the standard counterargument goes:

- either it's transitive, in which case your type system is very much more complicated

- or it isn't, in which case it's a near useless liability

Naturally C++ runs with the latter, with bonus extra typing for all the overloads it induces.

[maleldil]

How isn't it transitive in C++? If the variable/reference is const, you can't modify fields, and you can only call const methods. What else do you need?