Garbage collection: Difference between revisions
m
Phix note
No edit summary |
m (Phix note) |
||
(2 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
[[Category:Encyclopedia]]'''Garbage collection''' (often abbreviated as '''GC''') is a technique used for management of the life
Some [[programming language|programming languages]] (such as [[Java]], [[Tcl]], [[OCaml]], and [[Toka]]) have an integrated GC support. Languages like [[Ada]] allow implementations with GC, but don't mandate it. Languages like [[Phix]] use reference counting, so memory is collected immediately rather than periodically. Other languages (such as [[C]] and [[C++]]) do not have GC.
GC is frequently critiqued for:
* unpredictable performance both in terms of time and space;
* distributed overhead for [[task|multi-tasking]] systems;
* difficulties in ensuring a proper finalization of collected objects;
* encouraging loose program design.
GC is a very vivid research area in computer science, focused on overwhelming the above mentioned drawbacks.
|