Re: in defense of GC (was Re: How come Ada isn't more popular?)

[Gautier <gautier@fakeaddress.nil>]

Ray Blaak:

> It is only sloppy programming in the context of manual clean up. With a valid
> GC you do not have to clean up at all. One simply stops using objects when
> they no longer need them, just "dropping them on the floor", leaving it up to
> the GC to eventually collect it.

Sorry for my ignorance in this field, but from a real household point of view, 
it seems to me that there is a big difference between
  (1) "stop using an object"
and
  (2) "drop an object on the floor".

In case of (1), I would hate that my object is taken from the table and thrown 
away by my garbage collecting robot GeeCee. Hey, does he know I really won't 
use my object anymore ?! In the case (2), it's OK that GeeCee takes it away, 
but then there is an action (Drop_on_the_floor) and I can do it in Ada 
(procedure Drop_on_the_floor_and_even_directly_throw_away is new 
Ada.Unchecked_Deallocation).

Thanks for an explanation...
______________________________________________________________
Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

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