Bug 166988 – Heap uses pointers way too much

• Status: NEW
• Component: JavaScriptCore

[Filip Pizlo]

The Heap uses pointers in a lot of places where we would ordinarily use references.  In JSC we use references when:

- Not pointing to the JSC heap.  (Most of Heap's pointers are not heap pointers.)
- The pointer is immutable.
- Using references would not introduce lots of * to & (and vice-versa) conversions.
- The pointer is non-null.

Under these rules, we could move most of Heap's pointers to references.  I think we should do it all at once or in a short burst of patches right next to each other.

[Filip Pizlo]

I'm going to use this bug for planting FIXMEs at all of the Heap's undesirable uses of pointers.  I don't want to change this code right now because I have bigger fish to fry, but I want a way to track all of the places that bother me.