Swift does away with pointers == pervasive ARC

Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Tue Jun 17 14:47:59 PDT 2014


On 17/06/14 13:59, Manu via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> The thing is, I don't know! I really don't know, and I don't know any
> practical way to experiment with this. D theoretically offers many
> opportunities for ARC optimisation that other languages don't via it's
> rich type system, so direct comparisons via O-C could probably be
> reasonably considered to be quite conservative.
>
> Here's what I do know though; nobody has offered conception of a GC
> that may be acceptable on a memory limited device, and it's also not
> very acceptable just by nature (destructors are completely broken;
> should be removed (like C#), concentrated cost as opposed to amortised
> cost).
> As far as I know, there is NO OTHER CHOICE.
> Either somebody invents the fantasy GC, or we actually *experiment* with ARC...
>
> We know: GC is unacceptable, and nobody has any idea how to make one that is.
> We don't know: ARC is acceptable/unacceptable. Why.
>
> What other position can I take on this issue?

I'm broadly sympathetic with your position here, but I think to be honest the 
only real answer is: the other position you can take is to grab the compiler 
sources and implement the support that you want to see.

I understand if you're worried that it might be a big investment of time and 
effort with uncertain prospects of acceptance, but I'm sure that if you were 
able to demonstrate something working effectively, it would shift the terms of 
the debate dramatically.



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