[oconnor663]

I still wouldn't call it GC in that case. It's pretty much exactly the same as std::shared_ptr in C++, and we don't usually call that GC. I don't know about the academic definition, but I draw the line at a cycle collector. (So e.g. Python is GC'd, but Rust/C++/Swift are not.)

[cmrdporcupine]

I consider reference to be garbage collection, and so do most CS textbooks. However Rc/Arc/shared_ptr are GC facilities used (often sparingly) inside predominantly non-GC'd languages, so, yeah, I wouldn't say Rust "is" or "has" GC. It has facilities for coping with cleanup, both RAII and GC.