3 ms·

Indirect the graph connections. This is almost always a better design anyway. Instead of storing pointers from one graph node to another, give each node an iden

• the8472 10y ago
  That's basically the "don't keep references into a Vec, keep indices" advise. I don't really like that because references explicitly encode the dependency in the type system. When you start juggling indices you're basically implementing poor man's malloc. You need to make sure you don't lose track of any of them. I think owned objects should have lifetimes and a "points to non-moving memory" property. E.g. a vec can be moved and must outlive all the objects that take references from it. That way it would be possible to keep an owned object and refs to it in the same struct and pass the whole bundle around.
  • wyager 10y ago
    > You need to make sure you don't lose track of any of them. This is a fair point, but note that in any memory management scheme except garbage collected, you run the risk of having a dangling reference if you use direct pointers to other nodes. At least with node identifiers, you can safely check that the other node still exists, in any memory management scheme.