The Edge of Safe Rust
summary
Claim: Rust can safely host tracing GC for cyclic pointer graphs by combining branding lifetimes with generative arena contexts and index-backed storage. Implementation uses a slot vector with generation checks, projection types to instantiate per-enter lifetimes, and an unsafe Trace trait (usually derived by proc macro) to guarantee reachability. The crate runs in production (Ruffle and a farming sim use it), collects by roots only, and mostly avoids UB while remaining Send/Sync-friendly.
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chapters (7)
- 0:00Introduction
- 3:24Cyclic pointers in Rust
- 11:10References and bump allocators
- 17:48Lifetimes versus garbage collection
- 28:30Implementing tracing and collection
- 36:55Value of this garbage collector
- 40:43Explore the design space
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