[gclist] Finalization and death notices

[Marc Shapiro -- at work]

 || Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 15:10:33 -0600
 || From: "Greg Colvin" <gcolvin@us.oracle.com>
 || 
 || >  || Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 14:57:45 -0500
 || >  || From: Charles Fiterman <cef@geodesic.com>
 || >  || Subject: Finalization and the insane postman bug.
 || >  || 
 || >  || The death notice is an identifer
 || >  || associated with the objct not the object's address.
 || 
 || What I don't understand is why "an identifer associated with the object
 || not the object's address."  Of what use is the identifier if you can't
 || the objexcts address from it?

The death notice is telling you that the object doesn't exist any more.
Therefore its address is meaningless.

Furthermore receiving a death notice is asynchronous.  It follows that
several objects might live and die with the same address -- if death
notice identifiers were not unique you could not tell one from another.

                                Marc