Atomic Ref Counting

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 11/22/10 7:27 AM, dsimcha wrote:
> == Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org)'s
>> Thanks for taking the time to build a credibla baseline. A lot of this
>> depends on the perspective. We're looking at a 2.9x slowdown after all.
>
> Right, but this isn't a 2.9x slowdown in real world code.  It's a 2.9x slowdown in
> a synthetic benchmark that does nothing but increment and decrement reference
> counts.  Real world code would likely have a loop body and stuff.  That's why I
> consider it minor.

I think the cost is close to the real cost of copying a refcounted 
object. Experience with refcounted languages has shown that copies do 
impact the bottom line considerably. I wouldn't haste to discount a 2.9x 
factor.

Andrei