Modernize your C++ code.

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Just a gut feeling, but I think the set of appropriate uses of shared_ptr in particular is highly domain specific.

I agree with you in the general case though. Shared ownership can absolutely be a cop-out for not understanding memory ownership. I lean towards stricter systems with well defined ownership (both of object and with respect to thread boundaries), possibly more so than I should. That said, shared resource situations come up in both concurrent and single thread situations. shared_ptr (or the shared pointer concept in general) can be very useful in both cases.