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Different langauges demand different features in the implementation of a garbage collector. A garbage collector that every language implementation could use wou

by coltonv 10y ago

Different langauges demand different features in the implementation of a garbage collector. A garbage collector that every language implementation could use would basically be a set of functions that languages could use to implement their garbage collectors, but at that point the library would be tiny and the per-langauge implementation of garbage control would be huge.

astrodust 10y ago
I'm not sure that the garbage collector in Ruby, Python, Node.js or Perl is going to be radically different. They all have their own implementations for historical reasons, not because they have such wildly different concerns. Java has a strange way of handling object lifetimes that complcates things, but it's not the norm.
- coltonv 10y ago
  Well you can't even compile Ruby, Python, Node, or Perl to WASM, since you can't compile dynamic scripting languages to LLVM. You could, for example, interpret Python by compiling the CPython interpreter to WASM (though that would mean an absurd bundle size), but this doesn't solve your problem since the python garbage collector is in the CPython source and you can't just remove it nor can you use a different langauges garbage collection because every language represents objects differently.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    > you can't compile dynamic scripting languages to LLVM... Considering Rubinius uses LLVM that's not quite true, and further, just because people haven't succeeded in taking it all the way it doesn't mean you can't. Maybe it's just hard. For example, if you're willing to sacrifice a few features that make compilation difficult you actually can compile Ruby: RubyMotion (http://www.rubymotion.com/tour/how-it-works/ http://www.rubymotion.com/tour/how-it-works/) does it. The biggest problem is something like eval, but if you're willing to live without dynamic features like that you don't have a lot of impediments to compiling to LLVM.

by coltonv 10y ago

astrodust 10y ago

I'm not sure that the garbage collector in Ruby, Python, Node.js or Perl is going to be radically different. They all have their own implementations for historical reasons, not because they have such wildly different concerns. Java has a strange way of handling object lifetimes that complcates things, but it's not the norm.

coltonv 10y ago
Well you can't even compile Ruby, Python, Node, or Perl to WASM, since you can't compile dynamic scripting languages to LLVM. You could, for example, interpret Python by compiling the CPython interpreter to WASM (though that would mean an absurd bundle size), but this doesn't solve your problem since the python garbage collector is in the CPython source and you can't just remove it nor can you use a different langauges garbage collection because every language represents objects differently.
- astrodust 10y ago
  > you can't compile dynamic scripting languages to LLVM... Considering Rubinius uses LLVM that's not quite true, and further, just because people haven't succeeded in taking it all the way it doesn't mean you can't. Maybe it's just hard. For example, if you're willing to sacrifice a few features that make compilation difficult you actually can compile Ruby: RubyMotion (http://www.rubymotion.com/tour/how-it-works/ http://www.rubymotion.com/tour/how-it-works/) does it. The biggest problem is something like eval, but if you're willing to live without dynamic features like that you don't have a lot of impediments to compiling to LLVM.