Garbage Collection Survey

[S.Marion]

Hello,

We are interested in programmers' experiences of programming languages
supported by managed runtimes (including but not limited to Java, C#, etc).
In particular, we are interested in bugs and performance limitations that
can be ascribed to the garbage collector.

We would be grateful to receive any accounts of such problems encountered.
If you think you can help, would you please complete the form located at
http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/rpg/sm244/GCForm/

Thank you for your assistance.

Richard Jones
Sebastien Marion

 

[Joe Seigh]

Hello,

We are interested in programmers' experiences of programming languages
supported by managed runtimes (including but not limited to Java, C#, etc).
In particular, we are interested in bugs and performance limitations that
can be ascribed to the garbage collector.

We would be grateful to receive any accounts of such problems encountered.
If you think you can help, would you please complete the form located at
http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/rpg/sm244/GCForm/

Thank you for your assistance.

Nice survey. Select for only bad experiences. Won't be too hard to imagine
what the conclusion of that survey will be.

I use GC is get massive improvements in performance in specific situations
though it's not part of a managed runtime and it isn't the GC you're thinking
of.

 

[John Carson]

Nice survey. Select for only bad experiences. Won't be too hard to
imagine what the conclusion of that survey will be.

The OP didn't state that it was a survey (as in something designed to gauge
what proportion have good experiences, what proportion bad etc.).

I use GC is get massive improvements in performance in specific
situations though it's not part of a managed runtime and it isn't the
GC you're thinking of.

A rather unenlightening tease.

 

[S.Marion]

Sorry I think you miss the point.
Our goal is to find the kind of problems one could experience with a GC.
We then aim to improve or develop some tools to help the developer
avoiding problems.
This has nothing to do with "GC is good or GC is bad".

 

[Rapscallion]

Our goal is to find the kind of problems one could experience with a GC.
We then aim to improve or develop some tools to help the developer
avoiding problems.

You are in the right group here. Standard C++ has no GC and will have
no GC in the future (unless the Prince of Darkness succeeds). It's
quite easy "to improve or develop some tools to help the developer
avoiding problems" with CG in C++. :-D

 

[Joe Seigh]

Sorry I think you miss the point.
Our goal is to find the kind of problems one could experience with a GC.
We then aim to improve or develop some tools to help the developer
avoiding problems.
This has nothing to do with "GC is good or GC is bad".

The point is there is more than one kind of GC and that they don't have to be
used blindly, ie. all or nothing. Most of the problems that I'm aware of are from
not realizing that fact. Thought I suppose there are environments like Java
or .Net where you don't have any choice in the matter. C++ isn't one of those.
Not yet, anyway. For Java you can look at the rationale of JSR 166 for some of the
problems they were running into and what they did to work around them.

http://gee.cs.oswego.edu/dl/concurrency-interest/

 

[Ed Jensen]

The OP didn't state that it was a survey (as in something designed to gauge
what proportion have good experiences, what proportion bad etc.).

The bottom of the web page reads:

We shall summarise the results of this *survey* at
http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/rpg/sm244/GCForm/survey.php

Emphasize mine.

 

[Artie Gold]

Nice survey. Select for only bad experiences. Won't be too hard to
imagine
what the conclusion of that survey will be.

I use GC is get massive improvements in performance in specific situations
though it's not part of a managed runtime and it isn't the GC you're
thinking
of.

I suspect you know not to whom you speak. ;-)

--ag

 

[John Carson]

The bottom of the web page reads:

We shall summarise the results of this *survey* at
http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/rpg/sm244/GCForm/survey.php

Emphasize mine.

Of course it is a survey in the sense that people are being asked questions,
the results of which might be summarised.

That does not make it a survey "as in something designed to gauge what
proportion have good experiences, what proportion bad etc." In other words,
it is not intended to provide statistics representative of the *population
of garbage collection users as a whole*. It is designed to identify
problems. There is nothing wrong with that, any more than there is something
wrong with a software company setting up a web site for the reporting of
bugs in its products.