Xref: utzoo comp.lang.misc:1234 comp.lang.modula2:699
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!sommar
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Garbage collection
Message-ID: <2849@enea.se>
Date: 15 Mar 88 08:51:15 GMT
References: <272@fang.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: sommar@enea.UUCP(Erland Sommarskog)
Followup-To: comp.lang.misc
Organization: ENEA DATA AB, Sweden
Lines: 28

Edmund E Howland (cbseeh@fang.ATT.COM) writes:
>Huh?
>Since when have these three ever had a need for garbage collection?
>I am not too familiar with Ada, but garbage collection exists in
>languages for whom dynamic binding is a way of life, not an option.

If I define and implement a package for a data type of some sort in 
Ada I can hide the implementation of the type, just providing a set
of operations. At a later state I can change the implementation without
affecting the interface. 
  However, I must already in the first step, decide whether objects of 
this type should be dynamic or not. Not so much for a allocation routine, 
you quite often need an initiation routine, anyway. But do I need a 
deallocation routine? If there is garbage collection, I don't have to 
think of this problem.
  Yes, I can one there just in case, but then the calling units have to
bother about using them, which may require a lot of clean-up code, which
might be totally unnecessary.

Generally, garbage collection is a must in object-oriented programming.
(No, I don't belive Ada is a true OO-language.)


-- 
Erland Sommarskog       
ENEA Data, Stockholm        
sommar@enea.UUCP           "Si tu crois l'amour tabou...
                            Regarde bien, les yeux d'un fou!!!" -- Ange