From: Ned Konz <ned@...>
Date: 2002-07-05T23:44:43+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby implementation Q's

On Friday 05 July 2002 03:16 am, Justin Johnson wrote:
> This is the problem, reference counting offers a
> potential solution but is flawed because of cyclic references.

Not just because of cyclic references.

Another problem is that the time to destroy a refcounted object is not 
predictable or bounded; it depends on the total number of items 
getting destroyed, and that depends on the object structure.

So a refcount destroy could conceivably destroy lots of objects, and 
each of those could have some significant destruction behavior, 
leading to long pauses.

Today's GC solutions typically offer higher performance.
-- 
Ned Konz
http://bike-nomad.com
GPG key ID: BEEA7EFE