Re:Reference count, don't garbage collect
by rowanG077 on Friday July 29, 2022 @11:00PM
(#32283923)
I never understand why people refer to reference counting as garbage collection. It waters down the term so much it becomes essentially useless. Because under that assumptions basically every language has garbage collection in some shape or form.
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Because we have studied the literature instead of what a random dude in tells at a coffee
Re:Reference count, don't garbage collect
by rowanG077 on Saturday July 30, 2022 @07:09AM
(#32285872)
Nice appeal to authority instead of trying to engage in a meaningful way.
When one is open to learning, the best path to enlightenment is to use the same books as the Wizards on the tower of knowledge.
Re:Reference count, don't garbage collect
by jstanley on Saturday July 30, 2022 @01:19AM
(#32284460)
C doesn't have garbage collection.
Furthermore, pretty much every language has I/O, but that doesn't make the term useless.
Re:Reference count, don't garbage collect
by tsimionescu on Saturday July 30, 2022 @02:25AM
(#32284750)
They do it because they serve the same purpose, though with different trade-offs.
Note that this mostly reflects automatic reference counting, like you have in Python or Swift, not so much manual reference counting like std::shared_ptr or Rc.