Is reference counting back in the ring?

[Jon Harrop]

 

Interesting paper on reference counting that claims this out-of-fashion approach to garbage collection can still be competitively performant:

 

  http://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~steveb/downloads/pdf/rc-ismm-2012.pdf

 

I actually think some of the core claims in the paper are wrong or at least unjustified but it is an interesting idea.

 

Note that Mathematica is a functional language that cannot allow cycles to be constructed by design and uses reference counting for garbage collection.

 

--

Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.

http://www.ffconsultancy.com