In traditional C, memory safety relies on the programmer correctly ordering `free()` calls. Even in C++ or Rust, while RAII and ownership rules automate this, the logic still lives in the control flow. LibTTAK encodes the lifetime directly into the allocation.
Key features:
Lifetime as data: Every allocation has an explicit expiry.
Access validation: `ttak_mem_access(ptr, tick)` enforces expiry checks at the data level.
Minimalistic cleanup: No GC, but automatically frees memory with an interval, which can be turned off. Also, the user can manually clean up targeted pointers.
Operational coupling: Simplifies staged shutdowns and subsystem boundaries by grouping allocations under a single lifetime.
The goal is to provide the safety of deterministic cleanup without the overhead of a garbage collector or the complexity of complex ownership tracking.
