Garbage collector memory leak "feature"?

[Bill Baxter]

0ffh wrote:
> 
> More comments on what
> 
> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> 1. Is this just the way all garbage collectors are?  Is there not a 
>> way to solve this problem?
> 
> No, only "conservative" gcs. There are also "exact" gc, but they have one
> big drawback: No void* type at all is possible!
> So either you want them, then you must use a conservative gc, or you don't
> then you can have an exact gc.
> D wants void*, so there is just no way round.

I think the main outstanding issues with D's GC are not so much about 
existence of void* but rather inability to differentiate between pointer 
and non-pointer data within a class.  Just having void* isn't what's 
causing the headaches here from what I can tell.  It's that a hash value 
or floating point value stored in the same aggregate as a pointer is 
also treated as a pointer.  That seems fixable through the use of extra 
time, space, or both.

>> 3. If it is solvable, is anyone working on this?  If not, they should 
>> be. Add this to the list of things that need to be fixed before D has 
>> widespread adoption.  Memory leaks == bad bad bad.
> 
> It is not technically correct to call prudently retained memory blocks
> a "memory leak". Those are distinct concepts, in my book at least.

Agreed.  But I don't know what the proper term is.  And apparently you 
don't either or you would have given us something better than "prudently 
retained memory blocks".   Ghost references maybe?

--bb