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Re: tools to make non-conservative GC feasible.






 >> The reason we like "conservative collectors" is because we can be lazy
 >> while programming and not worry about what does and doesn't have to be
 >> visible to the collector.

>I thought the reason we liked conservative collectors is that they
>work even when interacting with arbitrary C code.

Well in the case of guile, GC seems to be only stack-conservitive, so you
have to think about it anyway.

The reason I like precise GC is partly because I think all objects should
be subject to GC, even objects that refer to external identities like file
descriptors, and stuff like that. For all the same reasons its good to GC
memory, it's also good to GC file descriptors. But I don't trust a
conservative GC enough to do that. And I also wonder what will happen
if by some coincidence a program allocates some big chunks of memory whose
addresses just happen to correspond to numbers held in memory. It just
worries me. Part of a programmers ideal to take care of every case and not
have anything non-deterministic.