Changing DalvikVM Automatic Garbage collector to use Reference Counting

[mirza2m]

Hi,
I have read some of DalvikVM code and it looks like it uses tracing
Garbage Collector. How hard would it be to make it use a reference
counting instead? Is it even possible with out changing the whole
architecture?

Thank you

[barry]

That would be quite a lot of work, I'd guess.
Google is doing active work on the GC, so I expect that major
architecture changes -- like changing to ref counting -- wouldn't end
up solving major problems.

[mirza2m]

On Oct 30, 11:30 am, barry <bha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Google is doing active work on the GC

These changes to the GC or the plans for them are they available some
where?

[fadden]

On Oct 30, 9:02 am, mirza2m <babar.ans...@gmail.com> wrote:
> These changes to the GC or the plans for them are they available some
> where?

We haven't published a roadmap for Dalvik changes. Various
improvements are coming, but I can't really go into what or when.

The 2.0 release includes type-precise garbage collection, but really
no other changes to the GC.