News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Java Was Strongly Influenced by Objective-C. Parent comment

Re:Java Was Strongly Influenced by Objective-C by mikeash on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @09:14PM (#4972005)
It doesn't work nearly as well. ARC doesn't handle cycles at all, which makes it substantially more painful to use than a garbage collector. Don't get me wrong. ARC is great compared to the previous situation, but it's simply not a substitute for a real GC.

Automatic reference counting dates back to probably the 1950s. If it "works just as well" as garbage collection, don't you think it would have won by now?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Java Was Strongly Influenced by Objective-C by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @10:12PM (#4972169)
One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers to each cons." Moon patiently told the student the following story - "One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector...

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/staff/magi/personal/humour/Computer_Fo...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Java Was Strongly Influenced by Objective-C by mikeash on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @10:12PM (#4972172)
This makes me paranoid that you can read my thoughts.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Java Was Strongly Influenced by Objective-C by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @10:21PM (#4972202)
Why? The garbage collection koan is common knowledge among compiler and PL people, I just took some initiative.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Java Was Strongly Influenced by Objective-C by mikeash on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @10:23PM (#4972211)
It's a joking way to indicate that this is exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote my comment.
[ Parent | on HN ]