> That means that arrays, in addition to start and end, also need a pointer to the base of the array object, where the reference count is stored. Isn’t the siz

> That means that arrays, in addition to start and end, also need a pointer to the base of the array object, where the reference count is stored. Isn’t the size and layout of the structure known at compile time? Why couldn’t the ref count be found by subtraction rather than by being passed? The standard way to implement this is to use address - 1 for such metadata, but any offset in a contiguous allocation works.