More radical ideas about gc and reference counting

[bearophile via Digitalmars-d]

Andrei Alexandrescu:

> I think the "needs to support BigInt" argument is not a blocker 
> - we can release std.rational to only support built-in 
> integers, and then adjust things later to expand support while 
> keeping backward compatibility. I do think it's important that 
> BigInt supports appropriate traits to be recognized as an 
> integral-like type.

Bigints support is necessary for usable rationals, but I agree 
this can't block their introduction in Phobos if the API is good 
and adaptable to the successive support of bigints.


> If you, Joseph, or both would want to put std.rational again 
> through the review process I think it should get a fair shake. 
> I do agree that a lot of persistence is needed.

Rationals are rather basic (important) things, so a little of 
persistence is well spent here :-)

Bye,
bearophile