[wangchow]

Alas, having no garbage collector at all is a blissful state of simplicity when performance matters. It's not very difficult to clean up one's objects manually in a well-thought-out codebase.

[tomp]

Experience (i.e. the number of memory-related bugs) suggests otherwise.

[wangchow]

What about smart pointers? It gives the flexibility and benefits of garbage-collection without the performance degradation. It's not a silver bullet but it helps.

What I'm getting at is, Rust is the only modern language (in vogue at the moment) that does not use garbage collection. It would be nice if more languages didn't require a garbage collector but gave the option to use one.

If there are some more of such languages please chime in and provide a link to them! :)

[topspin]

GC isn't the the only way to achieve memory safety.

[pjmlp]

> well-thought-out codebase.

Which in real life means a single developer ownership codebase.

[hood_syntax]

Or a meticulous team of very high quality engineers with top notch documentation and design practices. Note that I do agree with you, however, because as you said:

> in real life

[gnaritas]

> It's not very difficult to clean up one's objects manually in a well-thought-out codebase.

Given the rarity of a well thought out codebase, I'd say it is. As soon as multiple people work on something confusion always ensues.