[gclist] Experience with conservative GC sought

[Henry G. Baker]

I have written a _precise_ gc using some of the features of C++, so
that I wouldn't 'forget' to push or pop something from some gc stack.
I spent a lot of time with gcc to make sure that the code would be
fast enough to not be a bottleneck.  It required a relatively large
amount of effort to beat the C++ type system into submission, but
I think that the net result was something that a large system like
emacs would be comfortable with.

I also did the same thing with Ada, although the particular solution
was different.  In the case of Ada, the gc stack was a vector stack,
while in the case of C++, it was a linked list stack.

So it is occasionally possible to utilize modern type systems to help
police a set of precise gc policies.

-- 
Henry Baker
www/ftp directory URL:
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/home.html