manual memory management

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 1/9/13 11:18 AM, Mehrdad wrote:
> On Wednesday, 9 January 2013 at 18:46:53 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> GC is a necessary requirement for memory safety, but not sufficient.
>
>
> Walter, would you mind explaining WHY it's "necessary"?
>
>
> I just spent so many comments explaining why NO form of automatic memory
> management is required for guaranteeing memory safety () and then you
> reply and say "GC is a necessary requirement" and leave it at that.
>
> See my comment here regarding handles, etc.:
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/mailman.232.1357570887.22503.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com?page=7#post-jimseaovuxmribkqbict:40forum.dlang.org

This is true but uninteresting. Entire classes of languages can be made 
memory-safe without garbage collection, such as many Turing incomplete 
languages, languages without referential structures, languages that 
don't expose pointers (such as your example) and more.

At the end of the day if references are part of the language and 
programs can build arbitrary reference topologies, safety entails GC.


Andrei