[boost] Re: Re: Re: Garbage Collection, Reference Count or Ownership?

From: Philippe A. Bouchard (philippeb_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-10-06 17:16:58

Gregory Colvin wrote:

[...]

>>  destructors will be called on time (not obvious)
>
> What does "on time" mean?  The best time and order for object
> finalization
> is an open and contentious issue among memory management experts.

"On time" means that the destructors will be called instantly; i.e. when the
last pointer on the stack is refering to a "group".

>>  & it is not requiring too much extra memory.  It is a better
>> overall,
>
> Better than what?

Faster than the actual shared_ptr mixed with a mark / sweep algorithm.
Cheaper on memory.

>>  I would like it to be benchmarked
>
> Me too.
>
> My suspicion is that your implementation of garbage collection can be
> given a shared_ptr interface with no loss of performance, which I
> would prefer over introducing a new type.

I agree, but I would like the new interface of shared_ptr to be able to
handle pure garbage collectors... it is true that sometimes pure garbage
collectors are faster than reference counts.  That will cover every possible
smart pointer.

Philippe