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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: Garbage Collection in Ada
Date: 1996/10/13
Message-ID: <1996Oct13.194807.1@eisner>#1/1
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references: <01bbb910$f1e73f60$829d6482@joy.ericsson.se>
 <199610132138291604607@dialup101-6-14.swipnet.se>
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organization: LJK Software
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-10-13T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <199610132138291604607@dialup101-6-14.swipnet.se>, lars.farm@ite.mh.se (Lars Farm) writes:
> Jonas Nygren <ehsjony@ehs.ericsson.se> wrote:
> 
>> Recently there has been some topics that has touched on the issue of
>> Garbage Collection, GC, in Ada. I peronally think it would be great to
>> have GC in Ada and I am not sure why there is such resistance. 
> 
> Cultural bias or even prejudice is the most likely reason IMHO. Not
> technical reasons. On and off the same discussion comes up in the C++
> community. Those that control C++ and those that control Ada simply
> don't want GC :-( Being in the C++ world, I can't speak about
> technicalities in Ada, but the arguments from the GC detractors among
> C++ and Ada users appear to be similar. They say that no one wants GC.

Postings from just one individual disprove any "no one wants" claim,
but I think what you are actually hearing from Ada implementors is
"not enough paying customers want".  Ada has many virtues, but there
is not an endless supply of Ada compiler customers, so implementors
must direct their resources toward implementing the most "popular"
capabilities.

There may be cultural bias, but it originates with the customer base.
I think you will find that every customer for Ada compilers has a
wishlist, and garbage collection is not near the top of most.  Bias
toward the features most important for one's own needs is fully
reasonable.

Larry Kilgallen