[cb321]

While tracing garbage collection is indeed one possible automatic memory management strategy in Nim, the new --mm:arc may be what darthrupert meant. See https://uploads.peterme.net/nimsafe.html

Nim is choice. :-) {EDIT: As DeathArrow also indicated! }

[avgcorrection]

Reference counting is a form of garbage collection.

[cb321]

Terminology in the field can indeed be confusing. In my experience, people do not seem to call reference counted C++ smart pointers "garbage collection" (but sure, one/you might, personally).

"Automatic vs manual" memory management is what a casual PL user probably cares about. So, "AMM" with later clarification as to automation options/properties is, I think, the best way to express the relevant ideas. This is why I said "tracing GC" and also why Nim has recently renamed its --gc:xxx CLI flags to be --mm:xxx.

Whether a tracing collector is even a separate thread or directly inline in the allocation code pathway is another important distinction. To muddy the waters further, many programmers often mean the GC thread(s) when they say "the GC".

What runtimes are available is also not always a "fixed language property". E.g., C can have a tracing GC via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehm_garbage_collector and you can get that simply by changing your link line (after installing a lib, if needed).

[pjmlp]

Terminology in the field is what CS books like "The Garbage Collection Handbook" (https://gchandbook.org), or "Uniprocessor garbage collection techniques" (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/BFb0017182), define.

People don't call reference counted C++ smart pointers "garbage collection", because they aren't managed by the runtime, nor optimized by the compiler, rather rely on basic C++ features.

But they call C++/CX and C++/CLI ref types, automatic memory management, exactly because they are managed by the UWP and CLR runtimes respectively,

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/cppcx/ref-classes-and-s...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/dotnet/how-to-define-an...

[cb321]

I doubt you are, exactly, but I think it's really hard to argue that the terminology, as often used by working programmers, does not confuse. ("Need not" != "does not"!) All that happened here is darthrupert made vague remarks I tried to clarify (and j-james did a better job at [1] - sorry!). Most noise since has since been terminology confusion, just endemic on this topic, embedded even in your reply.

I may be misreading your post as declaration rather than explanation of confusion, but on the one hand you seem to write as if "people not calling RC smart ptrs 'GC' is 'reasonable'" yet on the other both your two books include it as a form of "direct GC" - GC Handbook: The Art of AMM with a whole Chapter 5 and the other early in the abstract. darthrupert just reinforced "working programmer usage" being "not academic use" elsewhere. [2] GCHB even has a glossary - rare in CS books (maybe not in "handbooks"?) So, is your point "Academics say one thing, but 'People' another?"

C++ features you mention were intended to blur distinctions between "compiler/run-time supported features", "libraries", and "user code". Many PLs have such blurring. Such features, basic or not, are optimized by compilers. So, neither compiler support nor "The Runtime" are semantic razors the way I think you would like them to be (but might "explain people/working programmers"). If one "The" or "collection" vs. "collector" are doing a lot of semantic work, you are in confusing territory. Also, human language/terms are cooperative, not defined by MS. MS is just one more maybe confusing user here.

Between intentional blurriness, loose usage, and many choices of both algos & terms used in books, papers, documentation and discussions, and the tendency for people to just "assume context" and rush to judgements, I, for one, don't see existence of confusion as mysterious.

Given the confusion, there seems little choice other than to start with a Big Tent term like "memory management" and then qualify/clarify, though many find "not oversimplifying" tedious. I didn't think this recommendation should be contentious, but oh well.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31440715

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31445489

[avgcorrection]

I see now that the GP wrote “a garbage collector” (not the article). Oops! “A reference counting method” doesn’t roll off the tongue. So it appears that your nitpicking was indeed appropriate.

[orlp]

Until you get a reference cycle. Then it's a form of garbage accumulation.

[cb321]

See the neighboring subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31438134 (which has details/links to more information and is more explicit than just the 4th footnote at the end of the mentioned twice before peterme link.)