Will the D GC be awesome?

[Walter Bright]

On 10/3/2012 2:26 PM, DypthroposTheImposter wrote:
> But can the D GC ever be made:
>
> 1. precise
> 2. able to scale to large-ish data set(2gig+)
> 3. No long stalls(anything over a couple millisecond(<3))

There is nothing in the language that prevents this, it's a matter of 
doing the implementation effort. Recently, the compiler started using a 
library-defined hook for doing precise GC. That hook currently does 
nothing, but it enables development of a better GC without needing 
compiler modifications.


> Q. Curious, would it be compacting?
>
> If not then I'm stuck not using it much--

Compacting requires making objects movable, and yes, D's semantics allow 
for movable objects. Interestingly, some of the latest ideas in GC seem 
to be moving away from compacting.



> * Oh and on a totally unrelated note, D needs Multiple return values.
> Lua has it, it's awesome. D doesn't want to be left out does it?

You can do that now with Tuples.


> * OpCmp returning an int is fugly I r sad

How else would you return a 3 state value?


> * why is haskell so much shorter syntax, can D get that nice syntax
> plssssssssss

Haskell's syntax is quite a bit shorter, but I find it difficult to 
mentally read, though I'm sure with practice I could get used to it.

D's syntax is deliberately designed to be a { } language, and to be 
comfortable for people who are used to { } languages.