>But if you take one thing away, let it be this: garbage collection is a hard problem, really hard, one that has been studied by an army of computer scientists

>But if you take one thing away, let it be this: garbage collection is a hard problem, really hard, one that has been studied by an army of computer scientists for decades. So be very suspicious of supposed breakthroughs that everyone else missed. They are more likely to just be strange or unusual tradeoffs in disguise, avoided by others for reasons that may only become apparent later. I really take issue with this. Imagine all of the progress that would have been delayed or quite possibly not achieved had people not persevered against the traditional thinking. Yes, GC is a hard problem but just because something's been researched for a long period of time does not mean there is no room left for innovation. Breakthroughs come some people that think differently not from people that think it's all been done before.