yeah, the problem with these kinds of discussions is that each of us has had their opinion coloured by their different experiences of software.

Overall, my experience of ref counting as implemented by the Apple frameworks has been very positive indeed.

My experience of ref counting in other contexts/frameworks has been patchy, usually depending upon the quality of the developers responsible for it.

The thing I really do like about ref counting is that it is deterministic, unlike other approaches, ie garbage collection.