[diamondlovesyou]

> It is not a language flaw. C++ requires types to be complete when defining them because it needs to have access to their internal structure and layout to be in a position to apply all the optimizations that C++ is renowned for. Knowing this, at most it's a design tradeoff, and one where C++ came out winning.

This statement is incorrect. "Definition resolution" (my made up term for FE Stuff(TM) (not what I work on)) happens during the frontend compilation phase. Optimization is a backend phase, and we don't use source level info on type layout there. The FE does all that layout work and gives the BE an IR which uses explicit offsets.

C++ doesn't allow two phase lookup (at least originally); that's why definitions must precede uses.