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Comment by bheadmaster | Hacker News Reader

Here's a direct quote from the documentation [0] from 2021:

> Most objects (~90-100%) are freed by V's autofree engine: the compiler inserts necessary free calls automatically during compilation. Remaining small percentage of objects is freed via reference counting.

So most objects are freed by the autofree engine, and the rest are freed via reference counting. This implies that no objects are freed by the GC, which is exactly what I've said.

Please stop gaslighting people.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210315092012/https://github.co...

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What's written is correct, what's the issue again?

RC was later replaced with a tracing GC.

RC is a type of GC btw, so...

> What's written is correct, what's the issue again?

The fact that the feature promised is impossible. I'm quoting some comments from which this whole discussion has started, since you don't seem to be able to follow:

> dgellow: They got lot of push back because what the core devs were describing Vlang to be was technically close to impossible

> amedvedikov: There were no close to impossible/missing features.

Static analysis (autofree) with reference counting, by itself, cannot theoretically free all of the objects during the runtime of the program. And I know that you know that since you've made the decision to switch to a tracing garbage collector.

The choice of tracing garbage collection makes the initial claim much less impressive and innovative - Go already has escape analysis, which is basically an implementation of autofree. But Go used a garbage collection from the start, so escape analysis is just an optimization - exactly what autofree is for the current V with GC.

V promised something impossible, it's not a big deal, we all make technical mistakes and learn from them. What makes it a big deal is your stubborn attempts to rewrite history and gaslight people.

> Static analysis (autofree) with reference counting, by itself, cannot theoretically free all of the objects during the runtime of the program.

It can't, that's what it says on the home page. Stuff that can't be freed during compile time is handled via GC.

What's the issue again? What's the impossible claim?

> It can't, that's what it says on the home page. Stuff that can't be freed during compile time is handled via GC.

The documentation I've quoted and posted a source to specifically says that all objects are freed either by 1) autofree or 2) reference counting.

> What's the impossible claim?

The impossible claim is that all objects are freed either by 1) autofree or 2) reference counting. As I've mentioned, neither static analysis (which is what autofree is) nor reference counting is capable of completely freeing all unreachable objects at runtime - reference counting is in particular unable to handle cyclic references.

> What's the issue again?

The issue is you vehemently claiming that V has never, ever promised a feature that was impossible - which is false, as I've demonstrated and cited with reference to archive.org of V lang documentation. So can you stop doing that, please?

You pointed to an old version of the documentation. RC was changed to tracing GC. Things can change in the design.

V never promised autofree without GC or RC.

> You pointed to an old version of the documentation

Yes, because that version of documentation specified a feature that was impossible, which is exactly what we're discussing.

> V never promised autofree without GC or RC

First of all, I never mentioned "autofree without RC". I am strictly speaking about "autofree without GC".

Second of all, V documentation has had the "autofree frees 90% of objects, RC frees everything else" segment, which clearly implies no GC. So the documentation has clearly specified that feature, which was an impossible feature.

Even the next paragraph says:

    The developer doesn't need to change anything in their code. "It just works", like in Python, Go, or Java, except there's no heavy GC tracing everything or expensive RC for each object.

So yeah, V promised autofree without GC.

V is not a finished product nor 1.0 yet. It's unproductive to act like things were carved in stone, from day 1. Programming languages go through development phases, where things do change and lead developers are allowed to make changes.

I completely agree.

But gaslighting people and pretending that overly grandiose claims/promises haven't been made in the past leaves a bitter taste, and doesn't inspire trust in core developers. Instead, it makes me think that the core devs are incapable of admitting a mistake - which would make their language a hazard.

For example, what if V gets huge and a serious security bug gets discovered - how can I trust that the developers will properly communicate the existence of such a bug and not just keep quiet about it, consider how they aren't even willing to admit that V has made some impossible claims/promises in the past? If I discover a bug, will they also pretend that the bug doesn't exist, even when confronted with indisputable evidence, because it threatens to damage their reputation?

As long as that attitude doesn't change, I'm not touching V with a 10 foot pole.

There's no pretending, see my reply to you above.

You're still pretending that V has never made an impossible claim, which I have clearly demonstrated that it has.

See my numerous replies to you in this thread, where I have quoted the documentation, provided the archive.org link and explained why the claim is impossible.

Do you have any other argument except "nuh-uh, didn't happen, lol"?

You still haven't listed any impossible claims, only something about autofree and GC copied from the website. What's impossible about that?

And again, everything written is correct.

No heavy GC tracing everything or expensive RC for each object.

What's your issue with the wording?

> What's your issue with the wording?

1) The first sentence clearly stated that:

    Most objects (~90-100%) are freed by V's autofree engine: the compiler inserts necessary free calls automatically during compilation. Remaining small percentage of objects is freed via reference counting.

Which explicitly implies that objects are exclusively freed only by autofree and reference counting.

2) Your emphasis of "everything" seems to imply a contrast to Python or Go method of memory deallocation:

    "It just works", like in Python, Go, or Java, except there's no heavy GC tracing everything

which would mean that Python, Go and Java trace everything, which isn't true. None of the three languages (Python, Go, or Java) use GC to trace everything - there are multiple optimizations (such as escape analysis and reference counting) that allow a certain percentage of objects to be freed by means other than tracing GC.

> Which explicitly implies that objects are exclusively freed only by autofree and reference counting.

Yes, and what's wrong with that? That's how it works now too, except RC has been replaced by a tracing GC.

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