Some simple ideas about GC

[Martin Nowak via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 12 May 2014 at 23:44:09 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I'll keep those with which std.allocator is likely to help:
>
>> - The current GC code is not hackable. First rewrite then 
>> improve.
>>
>> - A testable and more modular rewrite (using recent D 
>> practices) would
>> encourage more contribution and is necessary for 
>> experimentation.
>
> I think std.allocator is some 15 work-hours from reviewable 
> form, and std.typed_allocator (with tracing and all) some 50 
> more work-hours. Unfortunately these numbers grow due to 
> fragmentation - and OMG I made a pun too.
>
Let's hope it doesn't become a fractal :).

There are already some existing allocators, e.g. vibe.d. If you 
make it possible to try out the allocator, report bugs and 
contribute fixes, this should help to polish the implementation. 
You could do this by moving your work to a separate repo and 
registering a dub package, instead of using a phobos branch.

I haven't yet looked at typed_allocator, but the heap layers 
concept is just about right for a GC rewrite. Maybe we'll use 
multiple specialized GCs in the future, instead of one generic GC.