Michael van der Gulik <mikevdg at hetnet.nl> wrote:
> Anthony Hannan wrote:
> >Segments
> 
> Would it be easier to have explicit object ownership? Every object has 
> an owner. That way, a "segment" is a group of objects with a common 
> owner.

The owning segment can be found by testing the object's address against
the segment range.

> Alternatively, a "segment" may not have out-going pointers, and 
> can only use an owning object as a sort of proxy should they need access 
> to the outside world.

That's exactly what cross-pointers do.  They point from one segment to
another on behalf of some objects within them.

> I'm hoping that you're going to leave a 
> mechanism open for one object to fake it's identity, so that it can act 
> as a stub for a remote object.

Right, a cross-pointer object is a stub that is a proxy for a remote
object.  Maybe cross-pointer is a bad name.

Cheers,
Anthony