Incremental garbage collection

Brad Roberts braddr at puremagic.com
Fri Jan 21 02:17:34 UTC 2022


On 1/20/2022 5:46 PM, Elronnd via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Friday, 21 January 2022 at 00:55:43 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

>> Write barriers are required for an incremental GC to work. Write 
>> barriers are unlikely to be accepted in D because they introduce 
>> synchronization overhead per pointer write. This would kill D's 
>> performance in low-level code, and I don't think Walter will ever 
>> accept this.
> 
> I have heard this claim before.  I don't buy it.

This is clearly an area where anecdotals like "Walter will never accept 
this" aren't useful.  There's ample evidence to show that he accepts 
when he's proven wrong.

To make any progress towards a better GC it's going to have to be 
demonstrated.  And the proof will justify the changes.  If they're good 
and the complexities required to get there aren't awful, then they'll 
make into the code base.  If they're not, then they wont.  The status 
quo is easy to get stuck in and help no one.

Someone with a good background in GC's needs to step up and be it's 
champion.  I expect that several people would rally to help once some 
basic momentum is established.  So, willing to be the rallying cry and 
step up?



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