Because... they ruined it.

But GC has nothing to do with whether heap allocations 'slow the program down', it's who owns the lifetime of the allocated object - for GC not the programmer, but the runtime.

If I create a an object, and then then soon after deref it [MyObj release], then I know it will dealloc immediately after. I'm basically in control of its lifetime, even though it's ref counted.

If I call [MyObj free] and it's still owned by another object (e.g. I added it to some collection), that's OK because the object is still useful and has a lifetime outside of my control, and its destruction will be deferred until it doesn't.

But, with a GC object, if I call new MyObj() and then soon after try my best to destroy it, I can't because I'm not in control of its lifetime, the runtime is.

That's what I see the distinction between GC and ref counted (not GC), and why I mostly don't agree with so many people here insisting that ref counting is garbage collection. How can it be when I can easily be explicitly in control of an objects lifetime? I create it, then I destroy it, and it happens exactly in the sequence that I dictate.

For sure, ARC makes it a bit more subtle, but even then, I can reliably predict when an object will be destroyed and factor that into the sequence of events in my program.

-An Atheist.

Spouses are not very fungible though, not that I've ever tried ! ...

Thanks for sharing.

"Apart from [big long list of stuff people never thought much about before] what has the EU ever done for us?!?"

The Treaty of Rome indeed.

But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.

But we can all agree that they made a wonderful fish that has helped millions of developers (including myself) over the years.

And... I have seen this in the wild: 'auto isFalse = true;'

But Stifler is still the character I remember the most.

Means you'd have to find a compiled lib with the exact same settings to decrypt them though.

I played it on the CBM64, and seem to remember being given a mission to find a stealth ship. Flew around loads, but never found it as far as I can remember.

It keeps mentioning a Cougar ship type, but I don't remember them in the game?

And this is where Linux won over MS - it wasn't on the desktop (which is still a mostly terrible experience to this day), but in the server room.

Coupled with Java or Perl and OSS Databases (MySQL and Postgres), people began moving software off the desktop and onto websites. Better web browsers (something else MS tried to dominate and were rebuffed) also helped. This cut MS out of the loop on new popular web servers (apache), protocols, languages and infrastructure - probably deliberately. This then allowed alternative platforms like the new iPhone and later android to gain a niche which they've since expanded massively.

I think people saw the monoculture that was developing around Windows (from days of XP onwards), and didn't like it, so actively sought to make their own path, Linux became was keystone there (could have been BSD though also...).

To be fair, Windows tried and abandoned 2 different methods of doing it before landing on the current IO Completion ports.

Nice. It definitely worked for FB :)

But then I noticed all of the insane stuff that they started reposting and wondered if I ever really knew these people at all?

The coops keep their rents below that of the competition to attract new members, and can even reduce the rents after the initial outlay has been payed off.

This would then create a number of large semi-altruistic competitors that would throw sand into the capitalistic machine and inhibit price gouging.

That doesn't reflect the reality that I see at all. The only area where quality of life is worse than previous generations is in property ownership - particularly in bigger cities and suburbs. But that's reflected across many industrialised nations from UK, Canada, NZ, Australia, so it's not a problem just limited to EU countries.

Otherwise the net price of "stuff" from electronics, cars, food, clothes, shoes and household accessories have fallen a lot in real terms and people have lots more than ever before - maybe too much ?

(a low blow I know)