Smart pointers instead of GC?

[Jerry]

Manu <turkeyman at gmail.com> writes:

> These are the problems:
>  * GC stalls for long periods time at completely un-predictable moments.
>  * GC stalls become longer *and* more frequent as memory becomes less
> available, and the working pool becomes larger (what a coincidence).
>  * Memory footprint is unknowable, what if you don't have a virtual memory
> manager? What if your total memory is measured in megabytes?
>  * It's not possible to know when destruction of an object will happen, which
> has known workarounds (like in C#) but is also annoying in many cases, and
> supports the prior point.
>
> Conclusion:
>   GC is unfit for embedded systems. One of the most significant remaining and
> compelling uses for a native systems language.

Hi Manu,

Doing a bit of searching, I came across the Metronome GC that IBM came
up with.  It appears to try to address the problems you raise:

http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_project_subpage.php?id=175

Any thoughts?

Jerry