Re: Generics - Difference between ADA and Modula--3

["Pat Rogers" <progers@NOclasswideSPAM.com>]

"Mark Carroll" <carroll@cis.ohio-state.edu> wrote in message
news:95n3oi$5nh$1@news.cis.ohio-state.edu...
> In article <95eumd$8i41@news.cis.okstate.edu>,
> David Starner <dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org> wrote:
> (snip)
> >Like what? I can give a short overview, but I'm not sure it will
>
> I don't yet know enough about Ada to say. (-:
>
> >be helpful.
>
> >Modula-3 is designed to be garbage-collected, and provides controls to
> >handle stuff without garbage-collections.
> >Ada is designed so that it is possible to garbage-collect it. It's
> >only garbage-collected on the JVM's, which don't give you any control.
> >If there was another GC implementation, any garbage-collection control
> >would be implementation-specific.
>
> That's a pity. So, there aren't any Ada compilers that compile to
> native code and offer a runtime with decent GC?

IIRC, GNAT works with Boehm's GC, and I'm told by a former insider that the
Aonix implementation works with a third-party GC product.  I've never done
either.

> Are there any other
> special tricks used to make memory management easier than, say, a C
> programmer might expect?

Some are built into the language (e.g., you never have to worry about
alignment of allocated values, unlike what one *should* do with C) and some
are available hooks, like user-defined allocators that can provide
predictable behaviour.  But overall, things work at a more abstract, safe
level.  For example, access values are always meaningful unless you
explicitly (and clearly) mess up.

---
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