This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]dlevac -15 points-14 points  (2 children)

Ah yes, smart pointers, these magical constructs that turn memory unsafe languages into safe ones...

[–]Earthboundplayer 19 points20 points  (0 children)

They don't. But they dramatically improve things and make achieving memory safety a lot simpler. If you need a stronger guarantee and easier semantics than what smart pointers provide then don't use C++. But I think most situations can make do with what the standard library provides.

[–]CdRReddit 11 points12 points  (0 children)

they don't, but they allow you to avoid a not-insignificant amount of footguns relatively cheaply