A brief introduction to C++'s model for type- and resource-safety

You can write C++ programs that are statically type safe and have no resource leaks. You can do that simply, without loss of performance, and without limiting C++’s expressive power. This model for typeand resource-safe C++ has been implemented using a combination of ISO standard C++ language facilities, static analysis, and a tiny support library (written in ISO standard C++). This supports the general thesis that garbage collection is neither necessary nor sufficient for quality software. This paper describes the techniques used to eliminate dangling pointers and to ensure resource safety. Other aspects – also necessary for safe and effective use of C++ – have conventional solutions so they are mentioned only briefly here. The techniques and facilities presented are supported by the Core C++ Guidelines [Stroustrup,2015] and enforced by a static analysis tool for those [Sutter,2015].