Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bloom-beacon!primerd!hollin!ds
From: ds@hollin.prime.com
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: Real-time Garbage Collection
Message-ID: <194000001@hollin>
Date: 23 Sep 89 20:13:00 GMT
References: <6488@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Lines: 18
Nf-ID: #R:hubcap.clemson.edu:-648800:hollin:194000001:000:798
Nf-From: hollin.prime.com!ds    Sep 23 16:13:00 1989


I believe you are both correct.

Most created objects can be managed with explicit creation/destruction code,
placed in abstract data type specifications or otherwise part of the
application, because their lifetimes are naturally connected to the algorithms
(or messages) that use them.  Sometimes, however, dynamic reclamation (garbage
collection) is truly necessary (to avoid unnaturalness or inefficiency).  A
useful parallel is the need for both stack and heap data storage in
general-purpose programming languages.

When an application can use explicit creation and destruction for most of its
object management, the garbage collection overhead is reduced, and this has
all sorts of good consequences.

David Spector
Prime Computer, Inc.
ds@primerd.prime.com  (until my layoff, expected soon)