Idea: "Explicit" Data Types

[Christopher Wright]

Bill Baxter wrote:
> I'm not voting because it sounds like it solves a problem that I don't 
> have.  Or else I just haven't understood.  I don't know what stack maps 
> are, so you kinda lost me on the first sentence.
> 
> --bb

A stack map is just a data structure (a bitvector, possibly) that 
records what on the stack is a pointer (and possibly what type of 
pointer it is). Instead of considering every word-size chunk as a 
pointer, you can be a lot more precise in garbage collection. And 
possibly a bit slower, but on the other hand, you might not have to go 
through as much memory on some collections. So you'll take a small, 
continual hit for occasional gains in speed and probably frequent gains 
in memory usage.