Re: newbie Q: storage management

[jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <dewar.863177058@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> Jon asks
> 
> <<Again, this makes good sense - at least up to a point.  But as you say
>  "in general".  Why even have generics?>>
>    
>   Because there was consensus agreement that this was a critical feature
> 
> <<Why have tasking?>>
> 
>   Because there was consensus agreement that this was a critical feature
> 
> <<Why have packages?>>
> 
>   Because there was consensus agreement that this was a critical feature

You completely missed the point of this.  Bob got it, but had another
take on it.  You should read those replies.


>   The whole point is that no such consensus existed for the idea of GC, not
>   even a noticable minority opinion, hence it was just not on the radar

Yes, but that was not the point.


> <<True enough.  One obvious way out of this for Ada is the generalized
> version of what Robert called out as a "compromise": a subsystem of
> generics which offered several variants.  A single global GC handling
> all dynamic memory issues isn't really needed.  In fact, this is an
> area where Ada could do something a little different by offering the
> ability to have multiple collectors per application targetting the
> specific needs of specific types (or classes of types).  This is the
> sort of thing that I've been working on.>>
> 
>   Actually, I prefer an approach with single global GC handling, but in
>   any case, clearly the constructive thing at this stage is to produce
>   sample implementations and encourage users to use them!

Check!

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
Belmont, MA 02178
617.484.3383
jsa@organon.com