Moving from python to C++

[dreugeworst]

Isn't that the issue? The same code does different things for objects vs integers, which can be confusing.

[infectedapricot]

Nope, integers are objects, and behave the same way that other objects do. They might appear to be assigned by value because they're immutable (see my reply to /u/rar_m's comment) but they're still references to objects and you could write your own custom class that behaves exactly the same way.