Opportunities for D

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 7/8/2014 9:12 PM, Mike wrote:
>  From what I've observed, I don't think users are complaining that D doesn't do
> ref counting.

The recurrent observation is "I use C++/Rust/Whatever because they do ref 
counting, and D uses GC. Therefore I cannot use D."


> I believe they are complaining that D doesn't do pervasive
> automatic reference counting.

ARC has been extensively studied and debated at great length for D. It is not 
going to work for D. Nobody has figured out a way to make it work for D. Let's 
move on to what will work.

> RefCounted can't be used with D's built-in types, right?

The question doesn't make sense. What is a ref counted int?


> IMO users are complaining that the current mark-and-sweep GC is not suitable for
> certain applications, and they want something that is.  The solution that comes
> to their mind is pervasive ARC, so that's what they say they want.  And because
> they can't actually try it for themselves, they aren't convinced it's not a
> feasible solution (It would be nice to see some measurable results).

We've been over this ground many, many times. Saying people want ARC is correct. 
Nobody has proposed a feasible design or a way to get to one (I failed at that, 
too).


> If RefCounted is intended to have shared_ptr<T> semantics, then it does appear D
> does reference counting, but I believe it's pervasive automatic reference
> counting that users really want to try.

There's no known way to get ARC in D.