Re: a .NET alternative (GJC et al)

[Tom Lord <lord at regexps dot com>]

       For Java we'd definitely be interested in accurate GC.  

Good.


	At least, we're interested if it can improve performance.  

Please don't gloss over robustness.  Accurate GC is important for
that, too.



      People have added support for this to gcc in the distant past.

That's one approach.  Implementing it entirely outside of the compiler
is another.  Some of the reasons I like the idea of doing it outside
the compiler are that will be more widely useful, simpler, and less of
a maintenance burdon on the future.

Anecdotally, Emacs maintainers have told me that the non-conservative
GC they use is easy to make mistakes with.  That can be fixed by
providing static analysis tools that catch the mistakes.  Folding a
version of those tools into GCC would then be a performance and
ease-of-use optimization, sort of like folding in CPP.  And there's
a general pattern behind that idea that applies to lots of advanced
programming techniques, if you want to go in that direction.

-t