3 ms·

Reference counting is a garbage-collection system like the others (and if you are going to use a garbage-collection system, you can for many usecases do better

• masklinn 11y ago
  > Reference counting is a garbage-collection system like the others Reference counting is a form of automated memory management which can easily be integrated and used in a manually-managed system, and can be used for a specific subset of the in-memory structures (again see shared_ptr). Not so for more complex garbage collection systems which tend to interact badly with manual or ownership-based memory management. Putting the lie to your assertion that the only way to implement sharing in a non-GC language is "gratuitous copying".
  • pascal_cuoq 11y ago
    Yes, it's a shame that you were not a reviewer, mid-2009, of my article published in September 2009.