Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!uflorida!travis!tom From: tom@ssd.csd.harris.com (Tom Horsley) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: C++ and garbage collection Message-ID: Date: 26 Sep 90 11:54:55 GMT References: <2030@aber-cs.UUCP> <57695@microsoft.UUCP> Sender: news@travis.csd.harris.com Organization: Harris Computer Systems Division Lines: 32 In-reply-to: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk's message of 25 Sep 90 16:43:17 GMT >>>>> Regarding Re: C++ and garbage collection; pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) adds: pcg> Also, I think that it is not terribly difficult to rework those pcg> applications so that they use only near or only far pointer, and at a pcg> probably tolerable cost in (space) efficiency. After all, nothing pcg> forces you to use near and far pointers in the same program; I would pcg> even say that strictly speaking this is not possible in C++. To say that "nothing forces you to use near and far pointers in the same program" is absolute nonsense. Performance is not `nothing'. When dealing with insane and brain damaged architectures produced by the twisted minds of Intel engineers it is often *absolutely necessary* to mix far and near pointers in order to get a program that even comes close to having an acceptable amount of overhead. Saying, "OK, well I'll just use far pointers for everything" is a sure-fire way to make a 30 second task take 2 hours. Furthermore, it is not only possible to mix far and near pointers in C++, it is actually much more convenient than in C. With C++ you get better type checking and you can use overloading to provide different versions of "the same" routine which accept far pointers in some case and near pointers in another. (Not that it is any fun, of course. Personally I am so sick of trying to code on this ridiculous architecture that I am about to buy a DG AviioN, get a real machine with a real address space, and never write 'far' or 'near' again...). -- ====================================================================== domain: tahorsley@csd.harris.com USMail: Tom Horsley uucp: ...!uunet!hcx1!tahorsley 511 Kingbird Circle Delray Beach, FL 33444 +==== Censorship is the only form of Obscenity ======================+ | (Wait, I forgot government tobacco subsidies...) | +====================================================================+