Re: memory management in Ada: tedious without GC?

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Robert A Duff" <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote in message 
news:wccskw8d332.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com...
> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
...
>> Well, I suggest that the overhead required in C++ for maintenance virtual
>> destructors should be lower than one Ada.Finalization. For example it 
>> does
>> not require linked list of objects.
>
> Ada's finalization does not require a linked list for stack-allocated
> objects.  It does for heap-allocated ones.

More importantly, why would you care? If the two words of overhead per 
object is too much, then surely the overhead of a tag is too much as well 
(also two words per object) and you'll have to regress to an untagged type. 
Similarly for the runtime cost (two instructions per object).

Moreover, the heroic efforts needed to deal with finalization of abandoned 
objects in any language with exceptions (which includes both Ada and C++) is 
going to cost as much or more (surely in code size, and probably in 
execution, too) as any linked list solution.

                                         Randy.