- Ante combines reference counting and borrow checking without runtime crashes, allowing flexible prototyping and gradual optimization.
- Unlike Rust's Rc with RefCell or Swift's borrowing system, Ante avoids runtime errors and overhead for mutable objects.
- Ante supports shared mutability with 'shared' types, enabling safe mutable borrows of reference-counted data via shape-stability.
- Unions in Ante require 'uniq' references for safe mutable access, with compile-time checks to prevent aliasing issues.
- Temporary 'uniq' conversions allow exclusive mutable references while restricting access to potentially aliasing variables.
- Ante's approach differs from Rust's Cell, which requires swapping values, by allowing direct mutable references to nested data.
- The compiler performs type analysis to ensure safety, though it may be brittle; future improvements aim for better ergonomics.
- Emerging patterns suggest shared mutable borrowing is possible, challenging traditional assumptions in memory safety design.