Re: Weak reference semantics - why does a dead weak ref keep its value alive?

Excerpts from Luite Stegeman's message of 2014-05-23 17:11:30 -0700:

Actually it's not the same, since I think the finalizer should still be run if the weak pointer object is unreachable (and it should run when the key becomes unreachable).

I think that's a legitimate point in the design space.

I haven't been able to think of any issues with considering the value unreachable here, so I'm still puzzled as to why GHC's semantics would be preferable. It doesn't look like it would complicate implementation too much either.

I'm not sure either. Perhaps Simon can comment? Edward