Proposal: Pooled memory management

[Manuel M T Chakravarty]

Sven Panne <Sven_Panne at BetaResearch.de> wrote,

> Manuel wrote:
> > [...]
> > * I want to get v1.0 of the spec fixed.  We are really only
> >   in bug fix mode for quite a while and only the finalizer
> >   problems held us back from finishing the spec.
> 
> That's OK and I understand your motivation. Let's finish v1.0 first.
> 
> > * I am sure there are plenty more useful FFI-related
> >   libraries.  However, the initial plan was to define basic
> >   functionality on top of which more elaborate schemes can
> >   be implemented.  We need to draw the line somewhere. [...]
> 
> But I strongly disagree here: The initial plan was to make a very small,
> but sufficient addition to the language (=> foreign import/export), which
> can be implemented easily on existing systems. In this respect, we have
> reached our goal quite elegantly IMHO.
> 
> The related libraries are a totally different beast: Minimality is *not*
> a design goal here. 

Ok.  I agree that my statement here was too simplistic.  Our
design principle with respect to the libraries is certainly
harder to state.

> In a nutshell: Let's include as many useful "patterns" in the next FFI spec
> versions as possible! 

Nevertheless, I am pretty sure the idea wasn't to include as
many libraries as possible.  We wanted a "reasonable" set to
cover the standard idioms.

The question is were to draw the line between the FFI spec
and a general set of generally available libraries.  I
completely agree that we should have large a pool of
libraries running on all systems as possible.  But some of
these can just be shared by being the same library rather
than multiple implementations of a standardised library.

Anyway, wrt FFI v1.0, we seem to agree that we leave Pools
out and first gather than experience with them.

Cheers,
Manuel