3 ms·

My understanding is that garbage collection in D is performed by a "stop the world" non-generational collector. Although GC is optional in D, without a more com

My understanding is that garbage collection in D is performed by a "stop the world" non-generational collector. Although GC is optional in D, without a more competitive implementation, the safest thing is to never depend on it. What advantage does D then have over languages like Rust and Zig?

keep_reading 3y ago
C/C++ interop and easy static linking makes it super nice for writing small utilities IMO
Alifatisk 3y ago
Are there GC's that doesn't halt the execution actively in use?
- hashmash 3y ago
  Java's ZGC and Shenandoah collectors suspend threads only briefly -- less than one millisecond regardless of the heap size.
  - Alifatisk 3y ago
    How come more languages doesn't implement non-halting GC?
    - pebal 3y ago
      The garbage collector must lock threads if it is compacting or does not create separate stacks for pointers only. All GCs for Java a lock application threads.
- pebal 3y ago
  There is only one like that, SGCL for C++ https://github.com/pebal/sgcl https://github.com/pebal/sgcl
WalterBright 3y ago
D's garbage collector is quite safe. Most non-trivial programs use a mix of stack allocation, RAII, malloc-style allocation, and GC. Each style has aspects they're best at. GC is particularly well-suited when using compile time function evaluation, which executed D code at compile time (i.e. adanced constant folding, where functions can be called).
- hashmash 3y ago
  My remark regarding "safety" wasn't with respect to the quality or correctness of the implementation. My concern is the case where you've found yourself in a situation where you're relying too much on GC, and the application is experiencing long pauses. Changing the design to rely more on manual allocation is one way out, but having more GC choices would be nice too.