[GHC] #8255: GC Less Operation

[GHC]

#8255: GC Less Operation
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        Reporter:  sirinath          |            Owner:
            Type:  feature request   |           Status:  closed
        Priority:  lowest            |        Milestone:  _|_
       Component:  Compiler          |          Version:  7.7
      Resolution:  invalid           |         Keywords:
Operating System:  Unknown/Multiple  |     Architecture:  Unknown/Multiple
 Type of failure:  Runtime           |       Difficulty:  Project (more
  performance bug                    |  than a week)
       Test Case:                    |       Blocked By:
        Blocking:                    |  Related Tickets:
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Changes (by thoughtpolice):

 * status:  new => closed
 * resolution:   => invalid


Comment:

 ARC does not make sense for a language like Haskell. Objective-C is
 already a language where you manually manage memory in essence anyway, and
 it's possible to screw ARC up too by breaking conventions. All the
 compiler does is insert `retain`/`release` calls for you, and it's not
 much more fancy than that. Haskell is a very different language and we do
 not manually manage memory - we do not have a distinction between things
 like 'values' and 'references', or have to concern ourselves with the
 lifetime of an object. This alone means ARC is inapplicable.

 There are other actual mechanical problems with ARC (like the fact it
 doesn't handle cycles without manual breaks, via weak pointers,) but
 that's really besides the point I'm afraid, since the idea in itself
 doesn't really make a lot of sense in the context of a high level garbage
 collected language.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/8255#comment:5>
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