[imtringued]

>use fancy smart pointers, etc.

The thing is, you think your code is safe and it most likely is, but mathematically speaking, what you are doing is difficult or even impossible to prove correct. It is akin to running an NP complete algorithm on a problem that is easier than NP. Most practical problem instances are easy to solve, but the worst case which can't be ruled out is utterly, utterly terrible, which forces you to use a more general solution than is actually necessary.

[maccard]

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Since smart pointers because ubiquitous in c++, I've (personally) had only a handful of memory and lifetime issues. They were all deduceable by looking at where we "escape hatched" and stored a raw ptr that was actually a unique pointer, or something similar. I'll take having one of those every 18 months over throwing away my entire language, toolchain,ecosystem and iteration times.

[Galanwe]

I don't think it's a matter of putting one versus the other.

If you can get away with smart pointers and such, life is beautiful, nothing wrong there!

The debate here is rather for the cases where you cannot afford such things.