[gclist] gclist-digest V1 #40

[Fergus Henderson]

Malcolm Cohen wrote:
> 
> Fortran 90 and its successors-to-come are prime candidates for GC.  In
> particular, the current standard for Fortran (IS 1539-1) has an auxiliary
> standard (IS 1539-2) for varying-length string handling, which requires either
>   (a) compiler support
>   (b) garbage collection
> or
>   (c) the user not to be worried about memory leakage

Hmm... I don't know Fortran 90, but for variable-length strings, isn't
simple reference counting sufficient? 

(I suppose you can call plain reference counting a form of garbage
collection, but since it only handles a restricted set of cases - those
with no cycles - I don't think it makes too much sense to lump it
in with general-purpose garbage collection.)

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3         |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.