From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: Ammo-zilla
Date: 1999/11/02
Date: 1999-11-02T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <wcck8o0yh5x.fsf@world.std.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 7vkjea$b34$1@nnrp1.deja.com
Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:
> Well do you understand the concern? Have you done debugging in
> this kind of environment? I have!
Not a whole lot, but I have written mixed Smalltalk and assembly
language, and yes, bugs were very nasty once in a while, because the GC
destroys the evidence. But if the total amount of assembly is
reasonably small, and you know you have a "weird" bug, you can stare at
the assembly very carefully until you see it. Or you can set options on
the GC that tell it to run more often (so you might get lucky and trip
over the bug sooner), or whatever.
I've also had experience with mixed Simula and Pascal, and with pure
assembly with some ad hoc sort of GC of some data structures.
But I've also seen some pretty nasty bugs in non-GC'ed systems, so...
In any case, in a garbage-collected system, somebody has to write the
garbage collector itself, and that fundamentally requires the kind of
low-level features we're talking about -- the GC obviously can't rely on
the existence of GC. Bugs in the GC itself have exactly the same sort
of nasty consequences we're talking about.
> A bug that damages the integrity of the collection mechanism can
> often take many garbage collection cycles to make itself known,
> spreading like a kind of cancer at each garbage collection
> cycle. Furthermore, the result might just be a subtle memory
> leak, particularly hard to detect, when the real reason for the
> problem has been disposed of many GC cycles ago.
- Bob
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-11-02 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 92+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-10-23 0:00 Ammo-zilla Stanley R. Allen
1999-10-24 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Aidan Skinner
1999-10-24 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-10-24 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Matthew Heaney
1999-10-24 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla David Botton
1999-10-28 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Charles Hixson
1999-10-28 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Matthew Heaney
1999-10-28 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla mitch
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Matthew Heaney
1999-10-28 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Laurent Guerby
1999-10-28 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Charles Hixson
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ada and GC (Was Re: Ammo-zilla) Vladimir Olensky
1999-10-29 0:00 ` David Botton
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-10-30 0:00 ` Samuel T. Harris
1999-10-30 0:00 ` David Botton
1999-10-28 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla David Starner
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Larry Kilgallen
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla David Starner
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Tucker Taft
1999-10-30 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Lutz Donnerhacke
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Matthew Heaney
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Charles Hixson
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla David Botton
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla mike
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla David Botton
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Charles Hixson
1999-11-03 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Wes Groleau
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Geoff Bull
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla David Starner
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ada and GC. Was: Ammo-zilla Vladimir Olensky
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Charles Hixson
1999-11-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-11-03 0:00 ` Charles Hixson
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert A Duff
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Robert A Duff [this message]
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-11-03 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Vladimir Olensky
1999-11-03 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-11-04 0:00 ` Ada GC (was Re: Ammo-zilla) Vladimir Olensky
1999-11-06 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-11-06 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-11-06 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-11-06 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-11-09 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-11-10 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-11-10 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-11-10 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-11-12 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1999-11-12 0:00 ` Didier Utheza
1999-11-12 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-11-10 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-11-12 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1999-11-04 0:00 ` Ada GC (was Ammo-zilla) Nick Roberts
1999-11-04 0:00 ` Wes Groleau
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Vladimir Olensky
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Garbage colletion Lutz Donnerhacke
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Lutz Donnerhacke
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-11-04 0:00 ` Didier Utheza
1999-11-04 0:00 ` David Starner
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Gnat IDE (was: Garbage colletion) Ted Dennison
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Garbage colletion Larry Kilgallen
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Lutz Donnerhacke
1999-10-30 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Lutz Donnerhacke
1999-10-30 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Matthew Heaney
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-10-29 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert I. Eachus
1999-10-28 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Tucker Taft
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Brian Rogoff
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-11-01 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Brian Rogoff
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Brian Rogoff
1999-11-02 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert A Duff
1999-10-31 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-10-24 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Aidan Skinner
1999-10-25 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Jean-Pierre Rosen
1999-10-24 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla Robert Dewar
1999-10-24 0:00 ` Ammo-zilla David Botton
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