Re: [9fans] Re: advantages of limbo

[Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net>]

one of the reasons that Limbo runs in much smaller spaces than
any Java i've ever seen is that most storage is reclaimed by
the reference counter, because many common structures
are not, in fact, cyclic.  DAGs by definition are not cyclic.
when programming (even on large machines)
it is good discipline (as Wirth observed) not to create the
garbage in the first place.  that also means that the incremental
garbage collector can be less obtrusive.

>>is there any other reason reference loops are not very common amongs
>>limbo programmers besides limitations of the garbage collector?

oh for heaven's sake.  i must not be explaining this very well.
there is no [inherent] `limitation of the garbage collector'.
it garbage collects arbitrary rubbish just fine.  the reference counted
side does, however, reclaim storage the very instant the data becomes rubbish,
which must certainly yield a smaller working set than any garbage collector
scheme that has one always trundling along later.