Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dino!sharkey!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hplsla!jima From: jima@hplsla.HP.COM (Jim Adcock) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: Eiffel vs. C++ -- Let's drop the garbage collection arguments Message-ID: <6590177@hplsla.HP.COM> Date: 29 Jun 89 21:02:16 GMT References: Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA Lines: 16 > What if I *need* to allocate memory in a critical section? Stopping GC > for some-of-the-time is not a trivial issue. Depends on the design goals of the GC. Traditionally GCs were invoked when one "runs out of memory." Turning off GC in this scenerio doesn't help one do critical paths, if one still needs memory. Boehm's GC has the easier -- and on virtual memory machines -- the more reasonable goal of reducing the growth of heap space. So one can "always" turn off GC for a while -- it just means heap might grow on you. If your critical path can't afford to wait while the O.S. grows heap space, then you can explicitely grow heap space before entering your critical region. Still, one needs a programming task that can afford several seconds time out occasionally. Strict "real-time" systems may not be able to handle this.