Re: Beginner with Cocoa

FROM : Scott Ribe
DATE : Tue Mar 25 21:57:07 2008

> For the record, reference counting for memory management is one of the
> oldest techniques in software and is not unique to Objective-C or
> Cocoa.


True, but slightly-deferred release is not common, and the autorelease pool
is pretty much unique. And the uniqueness does throw newbies off. The
autorelease pool is an elegant technique which actually eliminates the
majority of reference count incrementing/decrementing code (outside
accessors), but it does seem to throw people off.

When you *read* about Cocoa memory management, it may seem like there's a
lot more to do than there actually is when you start *writing* Cocoa code.
Unless of course you don't follow the rules literally, and tie yourself up
in knots, using convenience methods, then unnecessarily retaining the
object, then passing it through to some Cocoa method, then (auto)releasing
it...

--
Scott Ribe
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http://www.killerbytes.com/
(303) 722-0567 voice