Is it a good practice to always use smart pointers?

Question

I find smart pointers to be a lot more comfortable than raw pointers. So is it a good idea to always use smart pointers? ( Please note that I am from Java b

Answer 1

If you are handling a resource, you should always use RAII techniques, with in the case of memory means using some form or another of a smart pointer (note: smart, not shared_ptr, choose the smart pointer that is most appropriate for your specific use case). It is the only way to avoid leaks in the presence of exceptions.

There are still cases where raw pointers are necessary, when resource management is not handled through the pointer. In particular they are the only way of having a resettable reference. Think of keeping a reference into an object whose lifetime cannot be explicitly handled (member attribute, object in the stack). But that is a very specific case that I have only seen once in real code. In most cases, using a shared_ptr is a better approach to sharing an object.