I'm going to make the argument that a lot, if not the majority, of C/C++ programmers don't need complete control over memory management. I think in many cases (not OS, not real-time), saying "but I need absolute control over memory management so I can optimize!" is the equivalent of "I write everything in hand-coded assembly because it's more efficient". It's probably not, the machine can probably handle it better, and you're missing out on useful functionality. You know what happens when I allocate and free memory myself? I generally end up with either a leak or a double-free, and I doubt I'm such a terrible programmer that I'm the only one like that.
False dichotomy.
If you use RAII, exceptions, and smart pointers in C++ there will be no leaks, no double-free, and not even a need for a GC.
I know it is difficult to make a point on the Internet, but resource leaks really are a solved problem in C++.
Yes, but then you're stuck using C++, RAII, and exceptions. Let's not even get into which smart pointer you should use--a Googler I know has recounted stories of massive internal mailing list arguments over exactly which of the half-dozen smart pointer implementations they should be using.
So, because C++ has imaginary problems, we should all switch to a language that solve them, while being worse at all other things that matters (you know, like code generation)?
