Rick Denatale wrote: > On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 12:05 PM, Roger Pack <rogerpack2005 / gmail.com> > That write up is a bit bogus I'm afraid. > > 1) The MRI GC is NOT conservative, it guards calls to gc_mark and it's > ilk by using the C function is_pointer_to_heap, since it marks objects > by setting bits in the object's header (the first word pointed to by a > potential object reference) marking a non-object by mistake would lead > to seriously hard to debug problems. Hmm. Perhaps our definitions of conservative differ? To me conservative means that it doesn't necessarily collect objects without references... > 2) Although a conservative GC, if Ruby actually used it, could cause > objects to live past the point that could no longer really be reached, > many garbage collectors have the property that there is no guarantee > that unreachable objects are collected as soon as possible, only that > objects will NOT be collected as log as they are alive. True, but not MRI that I'm aware, except objects with finalizers I suppose. Oh feel free to change the content on that wiki page nothing sacred there. -r -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.