safe pointer details consider concurrency

8.4: adda/dstr/safe pointers/
space-efficiently pointing to both static type info and obj:
. we need to point at the symbol table index
not the obj itself, because,
only the symbol table index has the type tag
in the case when the type is static .
. as for space-efficiently doing this
at first I was worried about the
huge length of full paths
(process#, act'rec#, symbol table index);
but, [8.3:
just like urls have versions,
{fullpath(absolute), filename(relative addressing)},
pointers too should be available as
both long and short versions:
the full path is
(process#, act'rec#, symbol table index)
but if you are in the same act'rec,
you'd use a shorter version of the pointer:]

. if you are in the same activation record,
then the pointer is a mere 16bits:
(we assume here that a pointer needs a 3bit type tag,
and that the max# of symbols is 2^13 .

[8.21: 3bits?
. locally we need no tag at all,
because we just assume everthing is local;
otherwise, if it's a general pointer,
it will have the general type.tag arrangement
which usually means a static supertype,
and a dynamic on-board subtype,
which in the case of pointer needs 2 bits
for these 4 cases:
( internet address,
, local to system
, local to process
, local to act'rec ) .]

8.26: processID irrelevant:
. do we need to track the processID?
. any obj' we'd want to point at
is located within some act'rec;
so, isn't the act'recID enough?
8.28: 8.26:
. the act'rec obj' could have a subtype.tag
so that the same act'rec supertype
could represent all sorts of objects
like subprograms, coprograms, type mgt obj's, etc .
10.6:
. the main place to for finding out
how the current act'rec is related to a process
is by asking the task mgt who is
using this act'rec ID as a node index
into a tree of processes and their act'recs .

8.28: processID irrelevant despite pointers:
. when using pointers, the process ID matters;
because, we can give a pointer for assignments?
but that's not the problem of our pointer:
it has only to locate a target,
and it's up to exec to do the right thing .
. any time an assignment takes place
the target must be either a global obj,
(these are essentially act'recs because
they're made thread-safe by msg-taking functions)
or the owner had to have ordered the assignment
(that means either the owner is suspended for a subroutine
or the target is locked for a promised assign by an async).

8.26: processID fundamental?:
. we'd like to keep pointer sizes small,
so if we could know that an act'rec would
stay local to a particular process,
then we could possibly divide the number of act'recs
by the number of processes .
. we could say that each process has its own heap;
and, just as each act'rec has few symbol nodes,
a process has few act'recs,
so this is another form of subheap
the process subheap vs an actrec subheap .
8.28:
. unfortunately, given the use of recursion,
the number of act'recs per process can still be
arbitrarily large, so this would do nothing for
the size of an act'rec ID .
. the situation where process is fundamental
would be in systems with unprotected vars;
because, then process is a unit of thread safety:
anything can access any var within the process,
and then the process has only one thread .
. what we could have instead,
is a system where encapsulation and locks
are the basis of thread-safe computing:
. anything accessing a var must instead
ask that var's type mgt to do the accessing,
and then the type mgt has only one thread .
. a var lock gives sole ownership of a var
to another thread .
. in that sort of system,
a process is nothing more than an act'rec
that is run concurrently vs sequentially .