Re: gc notes available

[thi <ttn@mingle.glug.org>]

Jim Blandy writes:

 > mdj writes:
 >
 > > Exactly.  This is what I meant when I wrote the question.  (But it
 > > seems to me that both you and thi interpreted it differently.  The
 > > last lines of my letter was supposed to mean: Slowing down Guile a
 > > little may be worth the cost if it makes Guile useful for new classes
 > > of tasks, like those dependent upon realtime performance.)

I agree with the last sentence.  But to me, the word "performance" is
unitless and thus meaningless; better to stick w/ established terms:
interactive latency and throughput.  To restate: reducing Guile's
throughput may be worth the cost if it makes Guile useful for new
classes of tasks, like those sensitive to interactive latency.

 > This is the crux of the matter.
 > 
 > Which would people prefer?
 > 1) Guile becomes slower overall, but does not pause noticeable for GC.
 > 2) Guile becomes faster overall, and most GC pauses become
 >    unnoticable, but does still pause occsionally?

I would prefer both, if possible, with runtime (or maybe start-time)
configuration.  For most of my Guile usage, (2) is fine, and perhaps can
be made to behave like (1) with some cleverness.  However, when I really
need (1), it would be nice to have it there.

thi