A benchmark, mostly GC

[Timon Gehr]

On 12/11/2011 10:13 PM, deadalnix wrote:
> Le 11/12/2011 21:55, Timon Gehr a écrit :
>> On 12/11/2011 07:02 PM, deadalnix wrote:
>>> Le 11/12/2011 16:43, Dejan Lekic a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> It would be really great to implement a generational GC similar to the
>>>> C4 mentioned in this presentation:
>>>> http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Understanding-Java-Garbage-Collection
>>>>
>>>> . There is a research-paper about C4 as well:
>>>> http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1993491 .
>>>
>>> This GC (like all compacting GC) require that the GC knows what is a
>>> reference/pointer and what isn't.
>>>
>>> This is possible in D using the compile time reflexion to build a
>>> runtime reflexion. But the standard lib is far away from that. This will
>>> also bloat the executable with reflexion's data, thing that some don't
>>> want.
>>
>> The information has to be generated by the compiler, not by the library.
>>
>
> This is not the way choosen by D. And the way choosen by D is, IMO,
> supperior.
>
> D choosed to have compiler time reflexion, but no runtime reflexion
> (compiler won't generate it). Given that, and the great capability of D
> for generic programming, the best solution is to generate information at
> using compile time reflexion using a lib, to get runtime reflexion.
>
> Many application do not want the bloat created by runtime reflexion.
> This is up to the user to compile with such a lib or not.

We are talking about supporting precise GC, not about custom runtime 
reflection. There is no way to get precise GC right without compiler 
support.