[Dev] Re: refcounted

[Andi Vajda]

> Also, I was curious to know why you prefer to leave non-pinning default when 
> we have no plans to use it and Ted, Morgen, Lisa and I prefer the opposite?

As discussed with you several times before, the 'refcounted' mode, just like 
the item stamping feature, is a, so far, non portable python-only feature. 
And it's somewhat experimental still.

Until I can see a way to extend it to another language such as Java - ideas 
exist but remain to be proven - I don't want it to be the default since it is 
a pervasive programming style change. As long as this feature is not portable 
elsewhere, I do not want to promote it since code written in refcounted style 
is difficult to port to environments not supporting it - one has to 
figure out all the places where pinning, the next best - or worse - solution, 
is to take place.

If Chandler has no plans to ever use anything else, that's perfectly fine, 
just don't, I have no objections to that. It is your responsible choice as to
how much portability you wish to build into the Chandler codebase. I don't 
feel comfortable taking that responsibility by making it or promoting it as 
the default.

Furthermore, I don't think that it not being the default is putting any undue 
burden on you or that your-life-is-made-any-harder this way. In Chandler, 
there is one place where you set this, and in the unit tests, one other.

There are a number of other configuration flags that need to be set when 
opening or creating a new repository and, as performance is further focused 
on, I expect the number of such flags to increase and these flags to become 
increasingly Chandler-specific.

As cool as this feature is, I do not endorse it as long as I care about 
portability.

Andi..