objective-c 中retain,assign,copy

"The assign keyword will generate a setter which assigns the value to the instance variable directly, rather than copying or retaining it. This is best for primitive types like NSInteger and CGFloat, [b]or objects you don't directly own, such as delegates[/b]."

The reason that you avoid retaining delegates is that you need to avoid a retain loop:

A creates B A sets itself as B's delegate … A is released by its owner

If B had retained A, A wouldn't be released, as B owns A, thus A's dealloc would never get called, causing both A and B to leak.

You shouldn't worry about A going away b/c it owns B and thus gets rid of it in dealloc.