Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!dog.ee.lbl.gov!ucbvax!agate!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!hoelzle From: hoelzle@neon.Stanford.EDU (Urs Hoelzle) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: Implementing LISP in C++ (type discrimination) Message-ID: <1991Apr23.000632.9175@neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 23 Apr 91 00:06:32 GMT References: <1991Mar8.024331.14235@searchtech.com> <27D7F621.2F5@tct.uucp> <17238@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> <1991Mar12.221015.22144@aero.org> <14342@hacgate.UUCP> <1991Apr17.233653.25149@dsd.es.com> Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Lines: 20 tmb@ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel) writes: > [Others saying that reference counting is slower than other forms > of GC] >Reference counting is, however, ideal for garbage collecting large, >non-recursive objects like arrays of type real, complex, bit, etc. >Any other kind of garbage collection will have much higher overhead ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >in this case, and you can never build circular data structures out >of them. What is the reason why this must be so? Do you have any numbers to show that reference counting is superior in this case? (Read: I don't believe it.) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Urs Hoelzle hoelzle@cs.stanford.EDU Center for Integrated Systems, CIS 42, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305