At 08:44 AM 7/3/2001 +1200, Tom Pledger wrote:
Juan Carlos Arevalo Baeza writes: : | Couldn't the garbage collector start doing reductions as soon as it | can't free up enough heap? :
Despite their name, reductions don't necessarily reduce space use.
Well, certainly not all, but certainly some of them would. (7+1) can always be reduced down to 8, which does reduce space. Thus the necessary heuristics.
For more details, see:
Yes, I remember that message. Still, it seems to me that a good RTS can (and should) be sophisticated enough to exhaust all reduction possibilities before giving up and aborting the program. Garbage collection is one (very necessary) such thing. Forced reduction like I was saying is another possible such thing. Only thing I can think of as a disadvantage to having this functionality is that it promotes the creation of inefficient programs. Salutaciones, JCAB --------------------------------------------------------------------- Juan Carlos "JCAB" Arevalo Baeza | http://www.roningames.com Senior Technology Engineer | mailto:jcab@roningames.com Ronin Entertainment | ICQ: 101728263 (my opinions are only mine) JCAB's Rumblings is so off-line O:-(