Re: [9fans] Re: advantages of limbo

[Rob Pike <rob@mightycheese.com>]

> Is there any other reason reference loops are not very common amongs
> limbo programmers besides limitations of the garbage collector?

what limitations?

seriously,  you should read again what presotto wrote.  using reference
counting coupled with a cyclic collector means that most of the time you
have complete control over the timing of your loops.  also, the memory
footprint of your program can be exactly what it needs; no requirement
to have a large arena to make the collection efficient.  these issues 
are
critical for the sort of embedded applications limbo was created for.
it just happened that they're also useful for general programming.


the real story though is this: for the last few days, every time a 
criticism
is raised about some piece of software, the arguments are always of
the form "but zzz can do it" for some value of zzz, yet what's really
being compared is some modern or idealized version of zzz vs. an
earlier, functional piece of plan 9 or inferno code.  yes, java *can*
do good GC.  yes, linux threads *can* create local storage.
and so on and so on.  but the point is:

	they could *not* do them when the programs (inferno, limbo,
	plan 9 threads, etc. etc.) you are criticizing were written.

we're writing about historical systems here and people are carping
that they are no better than what you can get today.  well, perhaps,
but so what?

oh, to hell with it, i'll rephrase.  linux is perfect. java is perfect.
there is no better way to think than to accept what hordes of
students believe is the one true way. no correct thought was
every achieved by anyone over 18.  i will never again write a
thought that could possibly deviate from the official plans to
be recorded in some upcoming software release from some
open source organization.

sorry for wasting your time.

-rob