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by pjmlp 3228 days ago
For those lacking CS background, reference counting is an GC algorithm.

The 5th chapter from "The Garbage Collection Handbook", http://gchandbook.org/, one of the most renowned books in the field, there are of course other equally renowned sources I can refer to.
1 comments
zerr 3228 days ago
Formality aside, it's about deterministic GC vs nondeterministic GC.
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pjmlp 3228 days ago
Reference counting isn't deterministic in the presence of large complex data structures.

You will know when memory gets deleted, but not how long it will take, nor how much stack space the destructors will require to run.

Enjoy Herb Sutter's "Leak-Freedom in C++... By Default." at CppCon 2016, where he explains how those issues affect C++ and goes on to implement a tracing GC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfmTagWcqoE

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