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From: "Eric Jeschke" <jeschke@cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: (debunk-myth '(debunk-myth '(<-efficient gc malloc/free)))
Message-ID: <1995Oct24.110637.4090@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
References: <QOBI.95Oct22061418@qobi.ai> <46dm26$if4@jive.cs.utexas.edu> <QOBI.95Oct22133648@qobi.ai>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 11:06:31 -0500 (EST)
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.dylan:5564 comp.lang.functional:6571 comp.lang.misc:23507 comp.lang.scheme:14105 comp.object:39765 comp.lang.java:2533

qobi@qobi.ai (Jeffrey Mark Siskind) writes:

:This is an important point. Until Hans Boehm's plug-compatible malloc
:replacement, GC was something that was inextricably tied to the low-level
:architecture of a particular language implementation. Users couldn't choose GC
:stretegy independently from language implementation. And most GC strategies

Not too put too fine a point on it, but using a gc based on malloc
ties you to a pretty specific low-level "architecture"--namely C's.
Of course, C is a ubiquitous development platform.

:in most Lisp/Scheme implementations lag far behind current state-of-the-art GC
:research. (This might even be true of most other languages as well---even
:SML/NJ---though I am only intimately familiar with Lisp and Scheme.) So one
:must make a distinction between the relative GC-vs-manual-storage-management
:costs that are attainable in theory vs the relative costs faced by users of
:existing language implementations. (Now only if you could get Allegro or
:Harlequin to incorporate some of your ideas in their products ...)

Can you give examples of languages that you consider to have state-of-the-
art gc?   I'm personally interested in hearing details about Java's GC,
which is apparently incremental, and runs concurrently with other Java
threads (info from BYTE).  Anyone have a pointer to more datailed information
on this?

-- 
Eric Jeschke                      |          Indiana University
jeschke@cs.indiana.edu            |     Computer Science Department
