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Text File | 1991-03-06 | 1.3 KB | 34 lines | [TEXT/GEOL] |
- Item 7083002 13-July-89 21:31
-
- From: BURBECK.S Burbeck, Steve
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- To: D2846 -> KORNHER Scarab Research, C Kornher, PRT
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- cc: MACAPP.TECH$ MACAPP Tech
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- Sub: GC hacks
-
- C Kornher,
-
- Your "goodby" mechanism for managing references to objects in two places is one
- possible method for coping for the lack of a garbage collector. In specialized
- cases it might even be preferrable to an automatic garbage collector because
- the programmer can specify explicit "farewell" behaviour other than just NILing
- the reference. And it can extend to a "hello/goodby" scheme for handling
- arbitrary numbers of references (which would amount to a home brew reference
- counting system). As you suggest, a multiple inheritance mixin which provided
- such a mechanism might be useful too, although the cloning issue you mention is
- one of the problems that can crop up.
-
- The point I tried to make is not that managing multiple object references
- without GC is impossible. Rather I argue that it is a tedious burden that the
- programmer should not have to bear. And, because of that burden, programmers
- without GC do not take full advantage of the OOP paradigm.
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- As for awareness of garbage in MacApp's debug mode, Steve Friedrich is already
- working on something along those lines.
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- Steve Burbeck
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-