Implicit retain cycle

[Ponyboy47 (Jacob Williams)]

@QuinceyMorris

I'd like to emphasize, once again, that there is no such thing as a strong or weak reference . There are only strong or weak variables or properties. That is, strongness or weakness is a property of the box that contains the reference, not of the reference itself.

This is where I'm now confused. Is self really just a property/variable of the current object that points to itself? To me, it seems/feels like self really is just a reference to the current object (how else do you describe a variable that points to the current object? I'd call that a reference). That being said, I'm more than willing to rephrase my earlier statement to avoid causing confusion with anyone else that comes across this thread. Do you have any suggestions for how I could better clarify that self is not really just a reference?

@QuinceyMorris

I'm not sure there's a good syntax for this, but if you want something vaguely like what you've been proposing, then maybe x = [weak self] in bar would not be inconsistent with closure syntax, or perhaps even x = bar[weak self] .

I'd prefer the [weak self] in bar for consistency with the closure syntax. I also think it reads more clearly than bar[weak self].