++DFB is an advanced version of DFB++ It's an incompatible fork with fundamental changes. Applications no longer deal with interface pointers. The classes wrapping around interfaces are used a container for an interface pointer, providing garbage collection the "direct" way 8-) By overwriting certain operators, e.g. '=', the need to care about AddRef() and Release() has been eliminated. These methods aren't even available anymore. All interfaces are released automatically now, either caused by finalization of an object having interface members, or by leaving a stack frame with an interface hold in a local variable. This also eliminates duplication of code caused by the lack of a C++ equivalent to Java's "finally" block. The following code is using DFB++: void DFBImage::Load( std::string filename ) { IDirectFB *dfb = NULL; IDirectFBImageProvider *provider = NULL; IDirectFBSurface *surface = NULL; try { DFBSurfaceDescription desc; dfb = DirectFB::Create(); provider = dfb->CreateImageProvider( filename.data() ); provider->GetSurfaceDescription( &desc ); surface = dfb->CreateSurface( desc ); provider->RenderTo( surface, NULL ); } /* Work around missing "finally". */ catch (...) { if (surface) surface->Release(); if (provider) provider->Release(); if (dfb) dfb->Release(); throw; } m_surface = surface; /* Keep pointer to interface object. */ provider->Release(); dfb->Release(); } This is how it's looking using ++DFB: void DFBImage::Load( std::string filename ) { IDirectFB dfb; IDirectFBImageProvider provider; IDirectFBSurface surface; DFBSurfaceDescription desc; dfb = DirectFB::Create(); provider = dfb.CreateImageProvider( filename.data() ); provider.GetSurfaceDescription( &desc ); surface = dfb.CreateSurface( desc ); provider.RenderTo( surface, NULL ); m_surface = surface; } The last line instructs the container object 'm_surface' (member) to take the interface pointer from 'surface' after calling AddRef(). Leaving the stack frame due to an exception or a return causes finalization of the local container objects 'dfb', 'provider' and 'surface' calling Release() if they've already been assigned an interface pointer. The suggested way of passing interfaces via parameters is to use C++ references as in this declaration: void PrepareTarget( IDirectFBSurface &target ); Explicitly releasing an interface is as simple as this: m_surface = NULL;