Retain Cycles: Why is that such a bad thing?

Question

There are two Objects A and B. A creates B and retains it. B has an instance variable that points to A, retaining it. So both retain eachother. Some people say, that this st

Answer 1

The way to break a retain loop is to have a separate "close" method.

i.e.

A retains B
B retains A

when you're done, call a method (I'll call it "close") on A where A releases B. You can then release A and the whole loop will release (assuming there are no retains elsewhere).