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reference counting is reference counting. a reference counting gc is a form of garbage collection. not sure what applies here, as am not versed in objc, but,
by cat199 6y ago
reference counting is reference counting.
a reference counting gc is a form of garbage collection.
not sure what applies here, as am not versed in objc, but, the terms are distinct - in theory one can have an object system that refcounts objects so that they are not mis-deleted if some reference still exists and the object is accidentally deleted by some code, but still allow for mostly-manual memory management.
- jolux 6y agoWe're discussing ARC here, i.e. Automatic Reference Counting, which is a garbage collection algorithm. Retain/release would be manual memory management by reference counting, which is not being discussed.
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoEven without ARC it's still garbage collection. The reference counts are kept for the purpose of managing garbage collection. That the programmer has to do some manual retain/release steps is beside the point, even if it does make the experience somewhat painful.