DIP60: @nogc attribute

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/18/14, 10:12 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 4/18/2014 8:34 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> Well there's been work on that. I mentioned this recent paper in this
>> group:
>> http://goo.gl/tavC1M, which claims RC backed by a cycle collector can
>> reach
>> parity with tracing. Worth a close read.
>
> A couple crucial points:
>
> 1. It achieves near parity with tracing, i.e. with a regular GC. It says
> nothing about performance for regular pointer code, when those pointers
> are replaced with ref counts.

This is moving the goalposts. "Regular pointer code" is unsafe, and 
safety has been part of your past arguments. This is tracing GC compared 
to refcounting, cut and dried.

> 2. It's a Java VM implementation. You can bet that the VM internally
> isn't using ref counting - too slow.

Not sure what this means in context.

> 3. I picked a GC for D because a GC coexists peacefully with pointers of
> all types. This is not remotely true with ref counting. It's not an
> issue with Java, which has no pointers, but this coexistence problem
> would be a huge one for D.

Agreed.


Andrei