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=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f4fd2,3727232787ce671e X-Google-Attributes: gidf4fd2,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,3727232787ce671e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-05-16 12:46:35 PST Path: archiver1.sj.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!213.56.195.71!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!isdnet!psinet-france!psiuk-f4!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: Universities in the US - Garbage Collector for GNAT? Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 15:35:50 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: <9dukqo$mmh$1@nh.pace.co.uk> References: <9drfcr$du11@news-dxb><9drk4t$hjk$1@news3.cadvision.com><9drq8e$4ci$1@trog.dera.gov.uk><9drsqc$mkm$1@nh.pace.co.uk><9dubnj$jk6$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <20010516210146.7f2a83ac.McCratch@gmx.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 136.170.200.133 X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 990041752 23249 136.170.200.133 (16 May 2001 19:35:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 16 May 2001 19:35:52 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.sj.google.com comp.lang.ada:7585 comp.lang.lisp:10173 Date: 2001-05-16T19:35:52+00:00 List-Id: Well, there are certainly "evil" things you can do in Ada. It's never been the least bit hard to write bad code in any language. Just for instance: Ada gives you lots of direct access to the machine (machine code & addresses), representations of data, multi-tasking, etc. Any of these things can be very powerful if used judiciously. Its very easy to imagine how with multiple tasks running in parallel and being used by someone unfamiliar with tasking how it could easily make a program *very* difficult to maintain or debug! (Just think of shared access by multiple threads to some resource.) As for Garbage Collection: Observations by one or more compiler vendors seem to indicate that while occasionally people make noise about it, nobody seems to want it bad enough to make it a priority. Additionally, Ada typically uses far less dynamically allocated memory and far fewer pointers than what programmers commonly use in C/C++. Since in most garden variety programs the bulk of allocation is static or off the stack, it is less of an issue. Thirdly, lots of programmers when building their own dynamic data structures, take advantage of Unchecked_Deallocation and Finalization to clean up memory that might be hanging around, so garbage collection seems a lot less necessary. (Assuming that for your implementation, Unchecked_Deallocation ends up returning the memory to the system - it may not...) Generally, it just doesn't seem important enough to create a strong constituency. Of course now I've probably just stepped into the doodoo and will be scraping it off of my shoes for days. The GC fans will come out of the woodwork and start explaining to me why the world is going to come to a halt if we don't start the revolution and "Free The Mallocs!" :-) Oh well. Some of these guys need the flame-bait or their blood starts to settle down at their ankles. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Matthias Kretschmer" wrote in message news:20010516210146.7f2a83ac.McCratch@gmx.net... > Another I think, why Ada will get usefull in future, is that the projects get larger and if you have more code to maintain it is hard if the language allows tricks, like C and C++ do. The clarity of Ada-code makes it much easier to maintain even code of other people. Even Java hasn't eliminated all "evil" things yet. Ada does not have much nasty tricks (I didn't saw one yet ...). But this brings me to another point - sometime ago there was a thread about Garbage Collector for GNAT (just mentioned an existing one for gnu c-compiler would work iirc) - someone has a working solution? > > mfg Matthias Kretschmer