Memory Model in TechScript
TechScript employs a hybrid memory model designed for speed, safety, and zero-overhead.
🏗️ Stack and Heap Division
- Stack: Holds primitive values (integers, floats, booleans, null) and variable bindings. Allocation and deallocation are instantaneous as function scopes push and pop.
- Heap: Holds dynamic structures (strings, lists, maps, custom class instances). Allocations return a reference handle stored on the stack.
🧬 Memory Safety Guarantees
TechScript inherits its memory safety guarantees from its Rust runtime core:
- No Data Races: Concurrent data access is governed by the VM, preventing race conditions.
- Bounds Checking: Every list indexing operation is validated against list dimensions at runtime to prevent buffer overflows.
- No Null Pointer Exceptions: The language does not expose raw pointers; null values are clean enum values in the VM stack.
🔁 Garbage Collection
Objects on the heap are tracked and freed using Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) backed by a cycle-detecting mark-and-sweep Garbage Collector (GC).
- Reference Counting: Objects are deleted immediately when their reference count drops to zero.
- Cycle Detector: Periodically runs in the background to identify and clean up cyclic reference structures (e.g. object A referencing B, which references A).
See Ownership Guide for data lifecycle details.