Future of memory management in D
jmh530
john.michael.hall at gmail.com
Wed Nov 17 13:56:47 UTC 2021
On Wednesday, 17 November 2021 at 10:59:19 UTC, IGotD- wrote:
> [snip]
> The benefit of a special type for managed pointers is that you
> can change the implementation of the GC fairly easily as well
> as incorporate metadata under the hood. Tracing GC is not
> suitable for low latency programs/embedded, but reference
> counting can be a viable alternative for the low latency
> programs.
Thanks. I now remember that this might have come up before.
I get the idea that tracing GC and reference counting are useful
in different programs. However, I understand that it is possible
to switch out D's GC, though that may not be so easy. Could you
explain a bit more how having two different pointer types helps
with switching out the GC?
Also, suppose std.allocator gets put in Phobos. We can currently
use the gc_allocator, would it be possible to also create an
rc_allocator? Is the issue that the pointer of gc_allocator is a
normal pointer, but rc_allocator would need one wrapped with
additional metadata?
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