Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!stat!vsserv!prism!tynor
From: tynor@prism.gatech.EDU (Steve Tynor)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: Real-time Garbage Collection
Message-ID: <1895@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 18 Sep 89 13:05:17 GMT
References: <91482@ti-csl.csc.ti.com> <6488@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Reply-To: tynor@prism.gatech.EDU (Steve Tynor)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 19

In article <6488@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
...
>    By doing this, we place a level of abstraction between the application
>    programmer and the details of storage management.  The use of pointers
>    is confined to the ADT's implementation, and the application programmer
>    is shielded from all the resulting complexities.  The interface also
>    simplifies the work of the ADT's implementor; the destruction algorithm
>    is usually quite straightforward.

Freeing the memory _is_ usually straightforward. Knowing when it's safe to 
do so _isn't_. That's when GC (or reference counting) becomes necessary.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
                     
    Steve Tynor
    Georgia Tech Research Institute
    Artificial Intelligence Branch
    tynor@prism.gatech.edu