On Tue, 2005-07-26 at 02:05 +0100, Jon Harrop wrote:

> How can that be a problem given that you (basically) cannot guarantee 
> collection anyway?

This is an important point because it is hard to answer
properly. I would say "I basically trust the Ocaml 
system to do a good job if it is allowed to". The problem
with an arbitrary dummy value being kept around just to
fool the Ocaml type system is that it seems to me it may
interfere with the requirement that it "be allowed to"
do a good job.

The problem in a varray implementation using this
technique is that it is hidden from the client 
programmer.


-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sourceforge dot net>