Smart pointers instead of GC?

[woh]

On Tuesday, 4 February 2014 at 22:30:39 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 2/4/2014 4:23 AM, Michel Fortin wrote:
>> For the rare cases where you actually want both versions to 
>> work,
>
> I think you're making a vast assumption that the case is rare.
>
> When I write utility functions, I want them to work on as wide 
> a variety of inputs as possible. Otherwise, they are not very 
> useful.
>
>> you can write them twice  or use a template (except in a 
>> virtual context), and in both cases
>> you keep the efficiency of not checking for null when the 
>> argument is not nullable.
>
> That's just what I wish to avoid. Consider adding more pointer 
> types - the combinatorics quickly explode. Heck, just have two 
> pointer parameters, and you already have 4 cases.
>
> I wonder how Rust deals with this.
>
>
>> In any case, I have yet to understand why @nullable as a 
>> storage class would be
>> any better. How do you solve that problem with a storage class?
>
> Good question. I don't have an answer offhand.

  rust would use a reference, basically a pointer that can come
from any smart ptr type, and does not outlive its owner