[linux-audio-user] Re: Re: linux-audio-user Digest, Vol 5, Issue 27 - Linux-audio-user

12 Feb 2004

stefan kersten:
...
  On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 09:24:28AM +0100, Kjetil
Svalastog Matheussen wrote:
   I
don't know about other garbage-collected languages, but
 there is no way to temporarily disable GC in Python,
 nor any way to force it to run at a particular time.

 Yes, but python have a reference-count garbage collector, so
 the problem shouldn't matter for python. 
 note that reference counting behavior doesn't differ that
 much from a sweeping gc: as soon as a count to a large
 object tree drops to zero the whole tree will be freed
 instantly, causing an indeterminate delay in execution,
 unless you defer free operations until there is time to
 perform them. additionally, AFAIK python uses malloc/free
 for memory management, which are inherently non-realtime.
 Sure, thats true. But at least compaired to the guile GC
which stops the world for many many ms-s, its much
more predictable.

...
  i'm not sure if turning off gc is a real solution
for (long
 running) musical applications. why'd you have a gc in the
 first place? 
Smaller and more elegant programs. Less time used
on finding bugs. Probably more reasons.

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