Is wxWidgets ready for this new Apple policy?

[ardi]

According to AppleInsider, Apple will start requiring ARC memory management in all apps submitted to the AppStore, starting 1st May. Is wxWidgets doing it already, or does it need to be modified in some way?

ardi

[Václav Slavík]

Hi,

> According to AppleInsider, Apple will start requiring ARC memory management in all apps submitted to the AppStore, starting 1st May.

No, it will not, you're misreading the actual announcement: https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02202015a

Apple will stop accepting binaries that use *garbage collection* — a deprecated failed experiment that requires runtime support. Nowhere does it say that you must use ARC, only that you must not use GC, which wx never did. It wouldn't make any sense for Apple to require use of ARC at App Store level, because unlike GC, ARC is entirely compile-time solution and produces the same (kind of) binaries as manual refcounting that wx uses.

(That said, I'm all for switching to ARC on the master branch because it would considerably simplify wx's Obj-C(++) code and would make contributing a bit easier for people like me who never got used to ARC-free Objective-C.)

Regards,
Vaclav

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 11:44:28 +0100 Václav Slavík wrote:

VS> (That said, I'm all for switching to ARC on the master branch because
VS> it would considerably simplify wx's Obj-C(++) code and would make
VS> contributing a bit easier for people like me who never got used to
VS> ARC-free Objective-C.)

Are there any drawbacks to using ARC? I'm not aware of any, but I could be
missing something.

Also, what is the scope of ARC? I.e. do we have to start using it
exclusively or can we keep using manual RC in parts of the code while
starting to use ARC in other parts? I hope both modes can be mixed but I've
never tried doing this...

Regards,
VZ

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