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With the caveat that I consider it a bad practice to use references unless you are backed into a corner and have no other options, then, yes, this is a good practice. Just remember that if *any* data member of your class is by reference then things work much MUCH better if *all* data members of your class are by reference. Trying to mix by value members with by reference members is legal but results in situations that many people screw up easily (i.e. the wire forks and now half of their class is copied and half of their class is the shared reference, leading to confusion about what exactly this object represents).