Re: Time to heat up the new module discussion

[Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

Steve Frécinaux wrote:
> Ben Maurer wrote:
>
> > Please read my previous emails. Designing everything in C will not help.
> > Evolution, OpenOffice and Firefox are evidence that writing your app in
> > C does not make it memory efficient. In the long term, a moving GC may
> > be beneficial.
>
> Does "using a GC" really mean you have to use a big bloated
> memory-hungry virtual machine ? Well, no. Inkscape uses a GC, and it is
> written in C++. D should provide a GC while not resting on a VM.

Thats right GC is not specific to mono/jave or managed runtimes.

D language proves you can have the same RAD, GC  and ease of use of 
managed languages but with native code and none of the significant 
overhead of managed code nor its big bloated runtimes. (on windows I use 
Delphi which is very similiar to D in design and it totally blows away 
.net and java in every area - startup speed, overall speed, memory usage 
and non bloatedness)

The we "need managed code" is a total myth on the *desktop* - there are 
no benefits only disadvantages. On the server its a different story 
where you might need the sandboxing features of managed code to create 
secure web services.

But like you said, Im not objecting to mono going into the desktop as 
such - Im just dispelling some of the myths.

> If ever VM were able to share libs, it would be a great improvement, but
> currently they can't. It means the managed part of the code is loaded
> for every managed app you launch. Which is far from optimal in the case
> of permanently running apps.
>
> As I said, I don't care about apps that don't stay alive in background.
>
> > At some point, we also have to realize that users with less memory do
> > need to make compermises. For example, such a user might want to choose
> > not to use Beagle.
>
> I don't use Beagle, and in fact I hope the alternate Tracker project
> will solve this problem. 

It already does - tracker uses a tiny 3-6 MB RAM and provides 
considerably faster indexing and search retrieval of results. I 
developed it for use on my 256MB notepad so its designed from scratch to 
be super memory efficient.


--
Mr Jamie McCracken
http://jamiemcc.livejournal.com/