From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Kjetil S. Matheussen" Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.user Subject: Re: the future of Guile Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 23:30:48 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: References: <1196798803.5494.26.camel@localhost.localdomain> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1196807482 12036 80.91.229.12 (4 Dec 2007 22:31:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 22:31:22 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "Kjetil S. Matheussen" To: guile-user@gnu.org Original-X-From: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 04 23:31:29 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-user@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IzgIT-0004yO-Fc for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:31:21 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IzgIC-0002gg-LN for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:31:04 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IzgI7-0002cf-Iz for guile-user@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:30:59 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IzgI6-0002b5-Rk for guile-user@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:30:59 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IzgI6-0002ar-NT for guile-user@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:30:58 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-forward.uio.no ([129.240.10.42]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IzgI6-0003jO-4t for guile-user@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:30:58 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-mx4.uio.no ([129.240.10.45]) by pat.uio.no with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IzgI4-0004lo-MJ for guile-user@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:30:56 +0100 Original-Received: from bjo1-1x-dhcp290.studby.uio.no ([193.157.245.38]) by mail-mx4.uio.no with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IzgI4-0006as-Dc; Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:30:56 +0100 X-X-Sender: kjetil@ttleush In-Reply-To: <1196798803.5494.26.camel@localhost.localdomain> X-UiO-ClamAV-Virus: No X-UiO-Spam-info: not spam, SpamAssassin (score=-0.0, required=12.0, autolearn=disabled, AWL=-0.025) X-UiO-Scanned: D9FA270F71A5E7D834AC777C84908FFADD73E239 X-UiO-SPAM-Test: remote_host: 193.157.245.38 spam_score: 0 maxlevel 200 minaction 1 bait 0 mail/h: 1 total 559 max/h 6 blacklist 0 greylist 0 ratelimit 0 X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: guile-user@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General Guile related discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.user:6330 Archived-At: On Tue, 4 Dec 2007, Roland Orre wrote: > On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 19:34 +0100, Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote: > ... >> Oh, and another thing. My tests (available in the guile-devel archives) >> also showed that the HBGC version usually use a bit less memory >> than Guile's old garbage collector. (Yet another "should" >> for replacing. :-) ) > > I don't have much experience with different GC algorithms, but > as I understand the HBGC is not intended for background GC. > Actually, it does: http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/scale.html > If the GC should be replaced I would consider it wise to > replace it with an algorithm than can be run in a thread. > This I consider strongly motivated by the fact that most new > machines today are multi core. An efficient way to decrease the > latency of the GC is to simply run it in background. > Sure, that would be great. But I don't think you know how hard it is to actually do that... But as a matter of fact, the HBGC do at least support parallell marking though, and I also think the HBGC patch for guile supports that feature. > Regarding GC I also think it is could be useful to have a GC that > can compact the memory I think the HB gc does a pretty good job of not fragmenting the memory at least. > and of course give allocated memory back to > the OS when no longer needed. Well, Don't think you need that feature very often when using an OS supporting virtual memory. Anyway, there is no third option here. The two choices are Guile's own garbage collector and Hans Boehms general garbage collector. The last one is used in a bunch of other programming languages with great success, and except for being a bit slower on uniprocessor machines when running a garbage collector benchmark, the HBGC seems to generally work better for Guile than Guile's own GC. Personally I hope the Guile developers choose to switch to HBGC when starting the next development cycle of Guile. _______________________________________________ Guile-user mailing list Guile-user@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-user