# NData
NData provides self-owned data structures supporting objects, arrays, strings,
integers, floats, booleans, byte buffers, and null. DataObject, DataArray, and
DataBytes instances maintain reference counts. Garbage collection is performed
manually by calling the NData::gc() function.
## Rapid Prototyping
Rust's memory management and type safety can add significant up-front development
effort when compared to languages with built-in garbage collection and relaxed
type safety. NData restores those benefits, making Rust the perfect language for
rapid prototyping. Yes, this does re-introduce the performance penalties and
potential bugs, but unlike those other languages you can easily refactor them out
of your code once you've worked out the logic.
*Example: [Doubly Linked List](examples/doublylinkedlist/src/main.rs)*
## Multithreaded Environments
NData is thread-safe by design. Objects can easily be shared between threads
without worrying about ownership or mutexes, etc.
*Example: [Multi-threaded](examples/multithreaded/src/main.rs)*
## Global Variables
Global variables are discouraged, and with good reason. However, sometimes you
need them anyway-- and you shouldn't have to dork around with unsafe code,
pointers, boxes, cells, and whatnot just to throw some data on the heap.
*Example: [Globals](examples/globals/src/main.rs)*
## Panic Management
Self-owned structures are not lost when panics occur. They are a convenient way to
recover key information when unwinding a panic.
*Example: [Panic](examples/panic/src/main.rs)*
## Garbage Collection
NData adds Toaster-Simple™ garbage collection to Rust.
*Example: [Garbage Collection](examples/garbage-collection/src/main.rs)*
## Hotswap Live Code
NData works well in conjunction with the
[hot-lib-reloader crate](https://crates.io/crates/hot-lib-reloader),
allowing you to swap new code into your running app as you write it while
maintaining the state of your runtime variables.
*Example: [Hot-Reload](examples/hot-reload/src/main.rs)*