I want to make an loose analogy between pmc/their_content and Unix inodes/files which I use as a mnemonic.
PMCs are the equivalent of inodes, each one reference some content which is the equivalent of a file. C<set_pmc>, when the source and the destination pmcs are of the same type, is like creating a hard_link to a file. The two pmcs share the same content. C<set_pmc>, when the destination pmc is a reference, is like creating a symbolic link with the difference that there cannot dangling reference pmc thanks to reference counting. C<assign_pmc> is like copying a file to another. After the assignement the two pmcs and their contents are independant. Does the analogy holds? or am I mistaken? I certainly don't pretend that one can carry further the analogy. -- stef
