The paranoia about memory use in C++ should mostly be a thing of the past if you’re using smart pointers and sane patterns. In 2026 almost nobody should be calling new and delete and passing around raw pointers.

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bluGill 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The reality though it many people are not using smart pointers. I have seen many people argue they don't like them because they want to see every place delete is called. (meanwhile of course they never notice all the places it should be called but isn't - but at least where it is they see it)

	▲	bayindirh 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Personally I love to use smart pointers where bleeding edge performance is not necessary. If I need the absolute fastest code, then that code will be tortured under valgrind. That’s non-negotiable in my book. Code is not done until its memory management is proven correct.

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AlotOfReading 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And yet applications written in modern C++ are constantly discovering new memory safety issues. Sean Baxter wrote a whole manifesto talking about the shortcomings of the existing C++ model [0].

[0] https://safecpp.org/draft.html

	▲	bluGill 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The problem with manefestos is they often harp on small parts that don't matter much in the big picture. There are real shortcoming of the C++ model, but if you use modern C++ they are rare. The real shortcoming it is very common for people to not write modern C++. I know several C++ developers who refuse to use smart pointers because they don't like magic happening.

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foldr 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

C++ still doesn't have a sane modern pattern for tagged unions. If you want to define a type to represent, say, a simple parse tree, then Rust makes that easy and obvious, whereas C++ offers you a hundred options, all of which suck.