> That's true, but I don't think it's very comparable to slices
It's exactly the same.
> With slices, you have to explicitly reallocate either by creating a whole new slice or using append.
That's a distinction without a difference. `append` does not "explicitly reallocate", it may or may not reallocate, you've no idea. Even if the backing array is full, it might be realloc'd in-place.
> On the other hand, maps may end up resizing on any operation that involves them, or even theoretically in the background without any operations (during GC, for example).
So?
Also technically nothing prevents a GC from reallocating the slice.
> It would be unfortunate to lose that implementation flexibility, and keeping it means that you're essentially picking the "make a copy" option.
I've never heard of a hashmap implementation which would do otherwise.
Trying to extend in-place and attempting to properly redistribute if that works sounds like absolute hell. Likewise trying to shrink in-place, though at least you've got some scratch space which you don't have in the other case: you'd have to segregate everything into one half of the map then insert them in the other half, before shrinking your allocation, which might give you a new allocation anyway, at which point you've moved all your values thrice whereas just creating a new allocation and reinserting your stuff there is a single move.
> That's a distinction without a difference. `append` does not "explicitly reallocate", it may or may not reallocate, you've no idea. Even if the backing array is full, it might be realloc'd in-place.
Maybe to you, but to me, a pointer going from modifying the value inside of the map to no longer modifying the value inside of the map during any operation is quite a bit different than requiring a reassignment of the slice header. In other words:
x := make([]int, 5)
y := &x[0]
x[3] = 8
*y = 5
print(x[0]) // always prints 5
as compared to
x := make(map[int]int)
y = &x[0] // btw, is this even valid? let's assume it implicitly does x[0] = 0
x[3] = 8
*y = 5
print(x[0]) // maybe sometimes prints 5?
is meaningfully different. For slices, we know that x[0] will always print 5 until the value of x is reassigned in some way.
> Also technically nothing prevents a GC from reallocating the slice.
It would have the same problem the map does: you'd have to update any pointers into the slice to point to the new slice, otherwise the semantics of the program changes. That is not something the GC currently does, and would require an awful lot of metadata and scanning.
> I've never heard of a hashmap implementation which would do otherwise.
I'm not sure what this is referring to. I agree every map implementation has to reallocate the backing store of values periodically. I was trying to say that keeping the flexibility to reallocate the backing store of the map during GC means that you cannot choose the "writes through pointer are observed in the map" option (at least without a lot of complication around updating pointers) because as a programmer, you would not be able to know if it would do that or not, which is a fairly useless primitive.
Yes, I avoid making assumptions about invariants across mutation calls, that's just a bad idea.
> For slices, we know that x[0] will always print 5 until the value of x is reassigned in some way.
Unless an other goroutine is stomping on your backing array anyway.
> It would have the same problem the map does: you'd have to update any pointers into the slice to point to the new slice, otherwise the semantics of the program changes. That is not something the GC currently does, and would require an awful lot of metadata and scanning.
Yes. So maybe we could ignore that useless strawman?
> I'm not sure what this is referring to.
To what I'm quoting.
> I was trying to say that keeping the flexibility to reallocate the backing store of the map during GC
That sounds less like flexibility and more like "let's make the GC slower and more complex for no reason".
I apologize if the tone of my previous comment sounded harsh to you or if some of my arguments sounded like strawmen. I am in good faith trying to interpret your comments as best as I am able. I don't feel like you're giving me the same courtesy, so I'll exit the discussion now. Thanks.
It's exactly the same.
> With slices, you have to explicitly reallocate either by creating a whole new slice or using append.
That's a distinction without a difference. `append` does not "explicitly reallocate", it may or may not reallocate, you've no idea. Even if the backing array is full, it might be realloc'd in-place.
> On the other hand, maps may end up resizing on any operation that involves them, or even theoretically in the background without any operations (during GC, for example).
So?
Also technically nothing prevents a GC from reallocating the slice.
> It would be unfortunate to lose that implementation flexibility, and keeping it means that you're essentially picking the "make a copy" option.
I've never heard of a hashmap implementation which would do otherwise.
Trying to extend in-place and attempting to properly redistribute if that works sounds like absolute hell. Likewise trying to shrink in-place, though at least you've got some scratch space which you don't have in the other case: you'd have to segregate everything into one half of the map then insert them in the other half, before shrinking your allocation, which might give you a new allocation anyway, at which point you've moved all your values thrice whereas just creating a new allocation and reinserting your stuff there is a single move.