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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,fd63afa4dc364b7e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-03-19 10:26:13 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!63.208.208.143!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!lsanca1-snf1!chcgil2-snh1.gtei.net!cambridge1-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!inmet!not-for-mail From: Tucker Taft Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Better support for garbage collection Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 13:24:39 -0500 Organization: AverStar (formerly Intermetrics) Burlington, MA USA Message-ID: <3AB64EE7.53C81015@averstar.com> References: <98m938$2iod0$1@ID-25716.news.dfncis.de> <98pgs1$32up7$1@ID-25716.news.dfncis.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: nebula.burl.averstar.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: inmet2.burl.averstar.com 985026279 24343 141.199.8.77 (19 Mar 2001 18:24:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@inmet2.burl.averstar.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Mar 2001 18:24:39 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.7 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:5862 Date: 2001-03-19T18:24:39+00:00 List-Id: Robert A Duff wrote: > ... > Tucker, by the way, is rather down on GC. He thinks there must be some > better memory management approach yet to be invented (and we've > discussed some of his ideas along those lines). We'll see. There is actually a fair amount of academic research in region-based storage management. The most recent ACM TOPLAS has an interesting, if a bit obstruse, article on that topic. The general idea is to ensure there are no storage leaks or dangling pointers, while also giving the programmer complete control over where and when storage is allocated and freed. The TOPLAS article is pretty heavy going, but the general idea is to use multiple regions/heaps, and have the compiler ensure that when a region is freed, there are no pointers still referring to it. Although they make no mention of it, Ada 83's "typed" pointers, with local access "collections" are the beginnings of this kind of thing. However, they are clearly too limited. I have been toying with a number of ideas that are more flexible than Ada's "local" access types, but which are just as safe and efficient. Some day real soon now I will put out an Ada amendment proposal I hope in this general area. -- -Tucker Taft stt@avercom.net http://www.averstar.com/~stt/ Chief Technology Officer, AverCom Corporation (A Titan Company) Burlington, MA USA (AverCom was formerly the Commercial Division of AverStar: http://www.averstar.com/services/ebusiness_applications.html)