Re: [Caml-list] Real Time Ocaml

[Eric Dahlman <edahlman@atcorp.com>]

On Apr 20, 2004, at 3:04 AM, Hendrik Tews wrote:

> Erol Akarsu writes:
>    Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 15:33:55 -0700 (PDT)
>    Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Real Time Ocaml
>
>    How long does it take to write a specific garbage
>    collector for OCAML for real time environment?
>
> I don't know either. I only have the impression that real time
> garbage collection is really hard. Therefore, I propose: Leave
> the Ocaml garbage collector as it is and write your real time
> code in an allocation free subset of Ocaml.

As a previous message mentioned the reason there is not much interest 
in hard real time garbage collection for Ocaml is that is is slow, 
slow, slow!!! For most people going to the effort of making a real time 
garbage collector which will make your program run 40% slower just is 
not a rational choice. The problem of real time collection is not 
particularly hard in and of itself it is just that it is of very 
limited utility outside of a very tightly defined application domain.

A great book on garbage collection in general that also includes some 
info on real time garbage collection is  _Garbage Collection_ by 
Richard Jones and Rafael Lins.  Armed with that someone could write a 
real time collector for OCaml running on some sort of a real time OS.

Have Fun!
-Eric

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