From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3498dd887729ed19 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: lars.farm@ite.mh.se (Lars Farm) Subject: Re: Garbage Collection in Ada Date: 1996/10/16 Message-ID: <199610162305033003135@dialup100-4-3.swipnet.se>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 189907011 references: <01bbb910$f1e73f60$829d6482@joy.ericsson.se> <199610132138291604607@dialup101-6-14.swipnet.se> <19961014115513529729@dialup105-2-16.swipnet.se> organization: pv nntp-posting-user: s-49817 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-10-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote: > Well if your requirements here are so weak that you find that these > kind of conservative GC's are acceptable, then what's your problem, "works" is not sufficient. Among C++ people the first reaction to GC usually is: -"impossible" for one technical reason or other. Not unlike what I experienced here. In practice it works. Unused memory is reclaimed and reused, heapsize will not grow and it is fast. It works. Currently this has to be qualified with "Using compiler A, version B and library C version D" and that is a problem. With standard sanction the potential problems you and others (optimizer tricks that might trip off the collector) would also be under control. If there is GC it is controlled by the same people that control the optimizer. With sanctioned GC there would be restrictions on what optimizer tricks would be allowed. To be useful in a world (C++/Ada) where GC is optional one needs *some* language support. At least enough to portably determine if GC is available at compiletime. A progam designed for GC should not compile on a compiler that doesn't support GC. C++ (currently) fails here, how about Ada? Also, using GC would be "allright" if it was part of the language, even if optional. -- Lars Farm, lars.farm@ite.mh.se