🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <26235.9210131340@subnode.aiai.ed.ac.uk>
jeff@aiai.edinburgh.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

   Now, one thing that didn't happen in X3J13's revision of Common
   Lisp was changes to garbage collection to support such things 
   as finalization and weak pointers.  I think it was reasonable
   not to do this, but I want to add my voice to those saying
   "we want it" in the hope that implementors will be influenced.

Me too! (But maybe it's too late to complain to vendors :-) Allegro CL
4.1 has "weak vectors" and finalization, the Lucid 4.1 announcement
talks about new features called "weak pointers and finalization".
(Maybe this is going to be the next major application of #+/#- :-)

   I'm not really sure finalization is a good idea though.

Why not? Let me guess: Programs that rely on finalization methods a
lot will be difficult to debug; people will use finalization where
macros like WITH-OPEN-FOO would be more appropriate... finalization
just gives you more rope to hang yourself, seems to be compatible with
the CL approach - down with Bondage-and-Discipline languages!
-- 
Simon.