passing by reference... my darkest enemy actual reason below: In your case (without reference) the compiler generates a temporary object (int) for the first argument of your MyApplication constructor. You pass this temporary int to QApplication’s constructor (with int reference), which saves the address of this reference. Once your MyApplication constructor is done the temporary int is destroyed but QApplication still has its address.

As a special  exception, FreeType can also be  built with the 'makepp'
build tool, available from http://makepp.sourceforge.net.

Note, however. that  you will need at least version  1.19 and pass the
option --norc-substitution to have it work correctly.