Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!gatech!purdue!decwrl!labrea!polya!shap
From: shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Garbage Collection
Keywords: non-religious C++ garbage-collection
Message-ID: <5422@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 2 Dec 88 19:53:07 GMT
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 16

Several people at Stanford seem to feel that C++ would be improved,
for some applications, by garbage collection.  The idea is not to
alter the language always, but to introduce a compiler option to
indicate that support for garbage collection should be compiled in and
link in a garbage collector. [Actually, they wan't to GC on an
object-type by object-type basis, but one step at a time]

The advantgage of garbage collection is that it permits storage
reclamation to be the environment's problem, which for some
applications is desirable.

I have some thoughts on how to do it without changing the semantics of
C++.  I would be curious if others think this idea is worth examining
and how they feel it might be done.

Jon