Talk:Automatic Reference Counting

Reference counting not garbage collection?

The page states that

ARC is not the same thing as garbage collection, as there is no background process doing the deallocation of objects. Unlike garbage collection, ARC does not handle reference cycles automatically; it is up to the programmer to break cycles using weak references.

which goes against the article for garbage collection that lists reference counting as a form of garbage collection and explicitly mentions Objective-C's ARC

Objective-C has not traditionally had it, but Objective-C 2.0 as implemented by Apple for Mac OS X used a runtime collector developed in-house, which was deprecated by LLVM's automatic reference counter, a compile-time garbage collector.

and in my experience, reference counting is generally still considered a form of garbage colelction. I'm not familiar with editing wikipedia, the process of disputing arguable definitions like this, and I don't have any references to back it up so I'm not going to do anything more, but I thought it was worth documenting the inconsistency.

2.221.249.190 (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2014 (UTC) Dylan B

I have edited the article to clarify that it is not the same as Cocoa's garbage collection. This allows the article to contrast the different Apple technologies for memory management - which I think is the useful part - while sidestepping the question of whether ARC is a form of garbage collection or not, which I think is better handled by the main reference counting and garbage collection articles. AJanuary (talk) 12:12, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Vala

Vala also uses ARC, why it is not mentioned in this article? 89.166.38.184 (talk) 16:01, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

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Copied by reference?

The article says that values types are "copied by reference". Shouldn't it be passing by value ie copied in their entirety in contrast with only copying (and then counting) references to objects? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.242.236.164 (talk) 19:04, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 1 August 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 00:55, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

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Automatic Reference Counting → Automatic Reference Counting (Clang implementation) – Automatic reference counting is a technology. This article is about an autonymous feature. I propose a move, and making this a title of a disambiguation page 92.242.236.164 (talk) 20:33, 1 August 2017 (UTC)--Relisting. DrStrauss talk 10:26, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

• Question: What would be listed on this new proposed disambiguation page? Checking Special:AllPages, I fail to see any other existing article with a "Automatic reference counting" title[1] or a "Automatic Reference Counting" in uppercase.[2]. Disambiguation pages should not list articles that do not exist yet. Unless these questions are addressed, such a page move would be premature, as it would be considered an unnecessary disambiguation. A proposal to either split this article, or create a new one should be done first. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:26, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose until the concerns raised by Zzyzx11 have been addressed.–Totie (talk) 18:08, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 26 August 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. While "reference counting" is certainly a more general and notable topic than this subject, per Amakuru there is no consensus or evidence here that the primary topic for the phrase "Automatic Reference Counting" is not this subject. Also capitalization is different; you wouldn't capitalize "Reference Counting" or "Automatic Reference Counting" unless you were referring to the Clang thing. I'm not sure about the WP:NAMELIST argument; reference counting is not "merely contains part of the page title". ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:24, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

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Automatic Reference Counting → Automatic Reference Counting (Clang implementation) – Automatic reference counting is a technology. This article is about an autonymous feature. I propose a move, and making (Automatic reference counting, regardless of case) a title of a disambiguation page, between this and the article Reference counting Paxcoder (talk) 16:40, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I am opening this discussion according to guidelines, after the one from the 1st was closed. I've added clarifications in parentheses and in italic, which should answer User:Zzyzx11's question/objection. --Paxcoder (talk) 16:40, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

• Would that be the only one ones that would be listed in your proposed disambiguation page? Dismabiguation pages do not generally list partial title matches. And unless you have a third topic, the easiest thing to do is to merely put a hatnote at the top of this article stating "this article is about the autonymous feature. For the technology, see Reference counting".[3] Disambiguation is not meant to merely clarify what the topic of the article is, that is the hatnote's job. Zzyzx11 (talk) 22:37, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per Zzyzx11. This is the only topic commonly referred to as "Automatic Reference Counting", and Google searches all pertain to this, thus disambiguation is not necessary. If there's any confusion with more general reference counting, a hatnote or a "See also" will do the trick.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:56, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.