Re:Show HN: A pure reference counting GC in Go
by pjmlp on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @11:37AM
(#22055683)
Oh they did fail indeed, Objective-C libraries were crashing left and right due to underlying C semantics and mixing frameworks compiled with and without GC enabled.
So they did the only possible exit, automate the manual retain / release Cocoa patterns on the compiler, and sell a marketing story about ARC and how GC is bad.
Pity that Borland and Microsoft haven't done the same about their compiler support for COM RC, done years before.
Android UI is janky due to bad coding practices, specially doing too much on UI thread.
Our phones are super computers compared with Lisp Machines.
If you want to start counting devices sold, it is pretty clear that tracing GC has won, specially when we had any kind of device with a web browser on it.
Adding GC to the Android platform was a stupid move. The Android UI is still janky compared to iOS, and GC is not the only reason why, but it's a significant reason. Android devices also eat battery like it's going out of style compared to iPhones and iPads. Again, GC is not the only reason for this but it factors in.