Re: Storage management, was Compiler writers will love this language

"Nick Maclaren" <nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message news:03-07-096@comp.compilers...
  [ ... ]


In the matter of GC--


> >[I think I've seen descriptions of GC that use reference counts in places
> >where they're known to be safe, other kinds elsewhere. -John]
>
> Yes, I remember that, too.


Limbo, http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/papers/limbo.html ,
the programming language for Inferno, mostly uses reference
counts for GC. The original version forbade creating references
that could be cyclical, and offers an explicit guarantee that things are
freed at last in-scope reference; in the Inferno implementation, for example,
a subwindow automatically disappears when its last handle is assigned
to or moves out of scope. Similarly for communication channels
and other system resources.


This was done by disallowing assignments to references that could
(directly or indirectly) lead back to the same type of object
containing the reference.


A slightly later version relaxed the rule by permitting reference
objects to be declared "cyclical". At the same time, a backup marking
GC was installed, but reference counting usually suffices.


        Dennis

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