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- 9Between utility libraries and JIT compiling, the lines between "compiled to native" and "runs in a runtime environment" are becoming more and more blurred.corsiKa– corsiKa2017-06-15 02:15:19 +00:00Commented Jun 15, 2017 at 2:15
- 6Just to add a bit about languages that don't come with GC support: It's true that C and other such languages don't provide information about call stacks, but if you're OK with some platform-specific code (usually including a bit of assembly code) it's still possible to implement "conservative garbage collection". The Boehm GC is an example of this used in real life programs.Matti Virkkunen– Matti Virkkunen2017-06-15 12:24:00 +00:00Commented Jun 15, 2017 at 12:24
- 2@corsiKa Or rather, the line is much more distinct. Now we see that those are different unrelated concepts, and not antonyms of eachother.Kroltan– Kroltan2017-06-16 09:54:04 +00:00Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 9:54
- 4One additional complexity that you need to be aware of in compiled vs interpreted runtimes relates to this sentence in your answer: "(Tracing) garbage collection usually starts by walking the call stacks of all threads that are currently running." My experience of implementing GC in a compiled environment is that tracing the stacks is not enough. The starting point is usually suspending the threads for long enough to trace from their registers, because they may have references in those registers that haven't yet been stored in the stack. For an interpreter, this isn't usually ...Jules– Jules2017-06-16 10:49:18 +00:00Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 10:49
- ... a problem, because the environment can arrange for GC to take place at "safe points" where the interpreter knows that all data is safely stored in the interpreted stacks.Jules– Jules2017-06-16 10:51:15 +00:00Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 10:51
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