Disadvantages of ARC

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 2/6/14, 9:18 AM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> Something that mallocs should return Malloced!T which calls the
> appropriate free (specified by the allocator) in the destructor. GC
> should return GC!T. Refconted should return RefCounted!T, and so on.

That ain't going to work.

Malloced!T and GC!T suggests parameterization by the type of the 
allocator. So there would need to be a type per allocator, which is a 
losing proposition from std.allocator's viewpoint, since there can be so 
many of them via template combinatorics.

RefCounted!T is a whole different thing, because it doesn't encode 
allocation strategy but instead memory reclamation tactics. There's no 
"and so on" and RefCounted!T cannot occur in an enumeration that 
includes Malloced!T and GC!T.


Andrei