Newsgroups: alt.lang.design,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!world!tob
From: tob@world.std.com (Tom O Breton)
Subject: Re: Reference Counting (was Searching Method for Incremental Garbage Collection)
Message-ID: <Czqu5L.6Cy@world.std.com>
Reply-To: tob@world.std.com
Organization: BREnterprises
References: <hbakerCzpJy7.ItH@netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 23:20:09 GMT
X-Posted-By: My own casual posting program
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c:117670 comp.lang.c++:100150 comp.lang.lisp:15785

hbaker@netcom.com (Henry G. Baker) writes:
> Good ideas.  Now can you formalize these rules & prove conditions
> under which any & all garbage will be collected?  I'm trying to
> understand _provably safe styles_ of programming.

Wow, we must really be approaching it from different perspectives.

You seem to want a more formal(?) academic(?) statement, which I'm at a
loss to frame. I probably have some implicit assumption, or assumptions,
that you don't. To me, as a programmer, hearing or saying "there's a top
structure that owns everything inside." expresses the idea precisely
enough. I'm not sure what it is you want me to make more precise.

        Tom

-- 
tob@world.std.com
TomBreton@delphi.com: Author of The Burning Tower

