Reference Counted Class

[IGotD-]

On Wednesday, 14 July 2021 at 17:52:16 UTC, sclytrack wrote:
> Would reference counted classes by default be too much of a 
> change? Is it a bad idea? Currently there a changes in the 
> language where you can avoid the reference count, right?
> Combination both the rc and the stop-the-world gc, for the 
> cycles.

Since classes are reference type, I think it can be done. If I'm 
wrong please explain why. Now, I think there might problems with 
existing code as there is no concern about the RC when classes 
are passed around. However, for new code this can be mitigated.

In practice this would lead to RC classes while other structures 
would still be garbage collected. This would reduce the amount of 
garbage collected memory which could be beneficial.

What I would find interesting is if this would enable 
deterministic destruction of classes.

It's an interesting subject and could be a half way step to more 
a more versatile memory management.