grauzone wrote:
IMHO array literals should be static arrays, which are value types. No
issues with heap allocation or immutability requirements.
That still wouldn't solve the performance problems.
Don wrote:
(2) Concurrency issues make (1) even more important. It ought to
possible to pass an array (defined at compile time) as a message.
This sounds very special. Any example where you'd pass an array known at
compile time as message?
There's one in Andrei's concurrency chapter in TDPL!
(3) Performance of the existing array 'literals' is absolutely
appalling. I doubled the speed of my entire app by changing ONE array
declaration from 'immutable [] xxx' into 'static const [] xxx'!!!
Right now, if an array literal appears in your code, chances are it's
a performance bug. It's deceptive that there's a hidden heap
allocation happening in every array literal. It's got no business
being in a systems language IMHO.
Delegates also can have hidden allocation (basically, you have to guess
the compiler's guess whether a delegate is a real closure). There are
several language elements that may or may not trigger additional memory
allocations (like setting .length or the ~= operator).
And the underlying problem is the bad GC that is torturing us all, isn't
it?
No, this one has nothing to do with the GC. The problem is that there's
no way of saying 'this array literal is not a variable'.
