[DUG] Embarcadero article

[Jolyon Smith]

I think the vitriol stems from the idea that people believe (and I think
rightly) that the sort of garbage collection that people are asking for is
largely an all or nothing affair.

i.e. if it's added to the language to please those who want GC (but who -
for some reason - aren't inclined to simply use a runtime environment
provides exactly what they say they want) then that this necessarily
pollutes the language for those who feel that Garbage Collection comes at
too high a price and is just pandering to the inherent laziness in all of us
(myself included - I'd love to be able to think less, but I know that I'd
make more mistakes if I did, not less).

The distrust of GC as a technology amongst experienced practitioners (as it
typically is) of the black arts of software development stems from:

 - less efficient use of memory (*)
 - unpredictably distributed performance across application usage (*)
 - loss of determinism (debugging complexity)

(*) GC assumes a vast over supply of RAM and an availability of application
idle cycles in which to recover wastefully over-allocated RAM.


The beauty of the GC framework (ref counted lifetime managed via interfaces)
that Delphi ALREADY OFFERS (!) is that:

 - as you say with 'D', it's optional  :)
 - it remains deterministic


So don't you already have what you want?
All you have to do now is use it.  :)

--
 "Smile", they said.  "it could be worse!"
 So I did.  And it was.


-----Original Message-----
From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On
Behalf Of Sean Cross
Sent: Wednesday, 17 June 2009 14:02
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Embarcadero article

I do use C# where it makes sense.  It just doesn't make sense for the sort
of shareware and desktop apps I mostly do.  

I have never understood the fanatical hatred of garbage collection that some
Delphi developers have (not aimed at anyone in particular but if you either
try discussing gc in non-technical, you will get a large amount of vitriol
heading your way).  It makes some things much easier, and some things
harder.  Optional GC such as in D seems reasonable to me, but apparently not
to everyone.

Regards
 
Sean Cross
CIO
Catalyst Risk Management


-----Original Message-----
From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On
Behalf Of Phil Scadden
Sent: Wednesday, 17 June 2009 1:33 p.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Embarcadero article


> Garbage collection is what I really want, but it's a long way down the
list of what will ever get added to Delphi :(
>   
Then use C#. I want Delphi as a C++ replacement with as few  compromises 
as possible, not C#. That said, the C# programming model has things I 
wouldnt mind in the language - data bound objects, decent object 
inspector and the dynamic interface thingies. Of course, if you are 
doing 64 bit, would MPI support be too much to ask as well?

-- 
Phil Scadden, Senior Scientist GNS Science Ltd 764 Cumberland St, 
Private Bag 1930, Dunedin, New Zealand Ph +64 3 4799663, fax +64 3 477 5232

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