>>garbage collection is about the ease of writing code, not reliability
No, it is about reliability. You are confusing not always necessary/perfect/optimal with average case reliability. On average, automatic memory management has less bugs because certain classes of mistakes can be entirely eliminated.
Also this argument of good programmers don't have to rely on X as a crutch is more about pride than productivity. In the real world, most teams have code touched by developers at a variety of skill sets and everyone's contributions affect quality of code so tools should be measured across levels of expertise.
If you look at the highly cited research on garbage collectors I believe you'll find most of it concurs as to the benefits, edge cases not withstanding.
> Also this argument of good programmers don't have to rely on X as a crutch is more about pride than productivity. In the real world, most teams have code touched by developers at a variety of skill sets and everyone's contributions affect quality of code so tools should be measured across levels of expertise.
Not to mention that sometimes even Homer nods.
If something needs to happen in a certain way and you have to manually ensure that it happens every time, sooner or later even the best of us will slip up. Now, the tradeoff in power and flexibility might be worth the risk of shooting ourselves in the foot, but it's still a tradeoff.
No, it is about reliability. You are confusing not always necessary/perfect/optimal with average case reliability. On average, automatic memory management has less bugs because certain classes of mistakes can be entirely eliminated.
Also this argument of good programmers don't have to rely on X as a crutch is more about pride than productivity. In the real world, most teams have code touched by developers at a variety of skill sets and everyone's contributions affect quality of code so tools should be measured across levels of expertise.
If you look at the highly cited research on garbage collectors I believe you'll find most of it concurs as to the benefits, edge cases not withstanding.