> Yes. Garbage collectors also call free. They call functions. Ok, what is calling `free` here? Point to the garbage collector. Show me the thing that is colle

> Yes. Garbage collectors also call free. They call functions. Ok, what is calling `free` here? Point to the garbage collector. Show me the thing that is collecting the garbage. > And in reference to `shared_ptr`, or Rc and Arc in Rust, that's manual memory management because you're doing it... manually. You're also doing it manually when you decide to make a type a class in Swift. You're opting in to reference counting when you write a class, or use a type that is backed by a class. It also seems that our goalposts have gone missing. Before, "it" (whatever "it" is) was a garbage collector because it happened at runtime: > That reference counting is done at runtime. It’s a runtime garbage collector. shared_ptr, Rc, and Arc also manage their memory at runtime. But now, "it's" a garbage collector because the compiler generates the retain/release calls...