Hacker News Reader

If they do ever introduce it, I sincerely hope it is completely optional. On my iPad app, I run with such tight memory constraints while dealing with large image files that it has to be freed up when I tell it to or I'm likely to get killed by the memory watchdog.

View on HN

The existence of a garbage collector doesn't mean that the programmer has to play a totally hands-off role in the allocation of objects; as with any coding, there are usually a few bottlenecks that deserve special care. A system with a good GC will provide opportunities to tune; for example, to make hints to the GC about lifetime and locality and so on.

http://www.jwz.org/doc/gc.html

I would expect it would be if they follow the pattern from OS X. I do wonder what the breakdown in new OS X apps between GC and retain/release.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com