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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!polyslo!ttwang
From: ttwang@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Thomas Wang)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.eiffel
Subject: reference counting vs. gargabe collection
Message-ID: <14149@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 1 Sep 89 05:20:13 GMT
Reply-To: ttwang@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Thomas Wang)
Distribution: na
Organization: Cal Poly State University -- San Luis Obispo
Lines: 20

I am reading the book "Object-oriented Software Construction".  One of the
paragraph reads:  [Reference counting] is wasteful of both time and space:
every operation on a reference, including simple assigment, now involve
some arithmetic and tests; and an extra integer field must be added to
each object.

I always thought that garbage collection takes longer than reference counting.
Is there any research to show this in fact is not the case?  This is comparing
the total running time of reference counting versus on-the-fly
garbage collection.

I am thinking about a system that uses reference counting to reclaim
normal objects, and garbage collection to reclaim circular objects.
If reference counting has worse performance than garbage collection, then
this approach is not a good idea.

 -Thomas Wang ("I am, therefore I am."
                 - Akira               )

                                                     ttwang@polyslo.calpoly.edu