RFC: reference counted Throwable

[Johannes Pfau via Digitalmars-d]

Am Sat, 20 Sep 2014 09:07:20 -0700
schrieb Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org>:

> On 9/20/14, 12:46 AM, Olivier Pisano wrote:
> > If making the GC completely optional is a must, then error
> > handling shouldn't rely on it at all, no? What about completely
> > switching exception handling to RC ? Would it have an impact on
> > memory safety since exeption handling mecanism is somehow
> > "magical code generated by the compiler" ?
> 
> The more I think of it the more sensible this is. Exceptions are 
> unlikely to create cycles, not copied extensively, and are generally 
> short lived. So an RC scheme backed by malloc/free seems to be most 
> appropriate.
> 
> There would be breakage, though: Throwable would not be convertible
> to Object. I wonder what the impact in the real world that would
> cause.
> 
> 
> Andrei
> 

+1, replace it completely with malloc/free.

However, for backwards compatibility malloced exceptions probably still
have to be added as roots to the GC, at least if they refer GC
allocated data. This should be somehow optional however.