Re: Languages don't matter. A mathematical refutation

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

"Georg Bauhaus" <bauhaus@futureapps.invalid> wrote in message 
news:mg5eoh$k18$1@dont-email.me...
> On 08.04.15 23:16, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>> That's what I call "trained ape" programming. It's so easy, anyone can do
>> it, so anyone does, and we get the mounds of crapware out there that 
>> barely
>> works and steals your identity at the same time. Bah-humbug.;-)
>
> Suppose
>
> (1) there exists an implementation of Ada that supports automatic
> memory management(*), and

That's not really possible, unless you're willing to forget controlled 
objects. (See my previous message for details.) There are some technical 
reasons that make it rather hard to fix this (we don't want finalization 
occuring at random places in the program code, because of the possibility 
that it has tasking or other side-effects -- it would be very difficult to 
write a correct Finalize routine if that was possible). [My proposal was 
that "early" finalization would only be allowed at places in the code where 
finalization would normally happen, scope exit and the like].

> (2) that doing all of the following becomes really easy:
> - to specify a pool for objects that are handled automatically,

pragma Default_Storage_Pool. See 13.11.3 in Ada 2012. :-)

> - to explain what that means, and

See 13.11.3 in Ada 2012. :-)

> - to pick a pool that exists and is portable (sort of).

It would seem easy enough for those to exist, assuming that some mechanism 
for tracing is invented. (That's the thing that a user can't sensibly write 
themselves, meaning the implementer and the language would need to be 
somehow involved. Otherwise, you could just use Grein's Smart Pointers and 
forget the whole special pool thing.)

> Then, I think, these conditions will describe something one might
> have come to expect of Ada: it keeps promises (to be GC-able) and
> makes everything explicit in source.

Sounds good. But how to do tracing without a lot of overhead??

                                 Randy.