N43: blink-alloc (rust-gamedev#1298)

zakarumych · web-flow · commit a59acbe5eed8 · 2023-03-05T17:27:16.000+04:00
diff --git a/content/news/043/index.md b/content/news/043/index.md
@@ -314,6 +314,57 @@ generated Metal/GLSL preview.
 [web demo]: https://not-fl3.github.io/miniquad-samples/shadertoy_cross.html
 [macroquad-shadertoy]: https://github.com/not-fl3/macroquad/blob/master/examples/shadertoy.rs
 
+### [blink-alloc]
+
+[blink-alloc] is a brand new arena-allocator with bunch of improvements
+over existing solutions that is
+tested with [Miri] and follows ["Strict Provenance Rules"][strict-provenance].
+
+> Arena-allocators offer extremely fast allocations and deallocations.
+> Allocation is just a few pointer arithmetic operations.
+> And deallocation is nearly no-op.
+> In exchange arena-allocator requires a point in time when all
+> previous allocations are unused to reset state.\
+> Rust's borrow-checker ensures the requirement for reset making
+> it 100% safe to use.
+>
+> TL;DR great for games, servers, cli tools and more.
+
+blink-alloc provides thread-local and multi-threaded allocators -
+`BlinkAlloc` and `SyncBlinkAlloc`.
+Single-threaded version [performs many times faster than `bumpalo`][blink-bench].
+The author couldn't find another implementation to compare
+the multi-threaded version's performance.
+
+It also provided ouf-of-the-box to fetch `BlinkAlloc` in task/thread
+and return it back when done, keeping multiple `BlinkAlloc` instanced warmed.
+
+On top of raw allocations blink-alloc provides `Blink` type
+that works as safe allocator adaptor.
+`Blink` can allocate memory and initialize it with values provided by user.
+User may provide values as-is, as closures or iterators.
+`Blink`'s API is safe with few exception for niche use cases.
+
+Those familiar with `bumpalo` may think of `Blink` as of `bumpalo::Bump`.
+Though `Blink`
+
+- drops all placed values on reset,
+  which makes it usable with any kind of types without resource leaks.
+- Accepts any iterator type, not just `ExactSizeIterator` implementations.
+- Is configurable to use any `BlinkAllocator` implementation, thus not
+  tied to `Global`.
+
+Currently Rust's standard collection types may use custom allocators
+only one nightly and with `allocator_api` feature enabled.
+blink-alloc uses `allocator-api2` crate to work on both stable and nightly.
+Integration with other crates is simple and doesn't require depending on
+blink-alloc, only on `allocator-api2`.
+
+[blink-alloc]: https://github.com/zakarumych/blink-alloc
+[blink-bench]: https://github.com/zakarumych/blink-alloc/blob/main/BENCHMARKS.md
+[Miri]: https://github.com/rust-lang/miri
+[strict-provenance]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/95228
+
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