-nogc

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> And may I ask what it would happen if I do this with your "-nogc"
> proposal?
> 
> class A
> {
> 	B b;
> }
> 
> class B
> {
> 	A a;
> }
> 
> A a = new A;
> a.b = new B;
> a.b.a = a;
> 
> ? Wont this leak? Are you planning to make a backup tracing collector to
> fix cycles maybe? Because I don't think using a naive reference counting
> will avoid leaks as easy as you put it...
> 
> RC is not *that* simple.

Oh I absolutely agree. In short, what happens depends on how Ref is 
implemented. In essence what I suggest is not (a simplified method of) 
reference counting, it's a hook that allows various 
allocation/collection strategies to be implemented by knowledgeable 
people (hint,  hint) :o).

I think WeakRef!T would also have to be part of the offering inside 
object_whatever.d. Then the example above can be fixed for the 
refcounting case by making one of the references weak.


Andrei