<p>I keep hearing people complaining that C++ doesn't have garbage collection. I also hear that the C++ Standards Committee is looking at adding it to the language. I'm afraid I just don't see the point to it... using RAII with smart pointers eliminates the need for it, right?</p>

<p>My only experience with garbage collection was on a couple of cheap eighties home computers, where it meant that the system would freeze up for a few seconds every so often. I'm sure it has improved since then, but as you can guess, that didn't leave me with a high opinion of it.</p>

<p>What advantages could garbage collection offer an experienced C++ developer?</p>

The committee isn't adding garbage-collection, they are adding a couple of features that allow garbage collection to be more safely implemented. Only time will tell whether they actually have any effect whatsoever on future compilers. The specific implementations could vary widely, but will most likely involve reachability-based collection, which could involve a slight hang, depending on how it's done.
One thing is, though, no standards-conformant garbage collector will be able to call destructors - only to silently reuse lost memory.