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I feel like GC is an evolutionary dead end. Too much indeterminism and action-at-a-distance. Rust and virtual reality are two clear indicators to me that we're

by pshc 12y ago

I feel like GC is an evolutionary dead end. Too much indeterminism and action-at-a-distance. Rust and virtual reality are two clear indicators to me that we're exiting the age of GC; the opposition isn't just Apple anymore, though they dealt the first blow.

AceJohnny2 12y ago
what's virtual reality in this context?
- pshc 12y ago
  Oculus Rift and friends. VR needs extremely consistent latency and has very tight deadlines. Ideally, you render 90 FPS and never miss a frame. GC pauses are out of the question, so if you're going to use GC, you need to be real-time without any degenerate stop-the-world cases. The linked article ostensibly delivers this, but there's no real-world evidence. Given your tight time budget, you also don't want to pay the "GC tax". GC just makes your life harder in this environment. There also isn't really any good reason to write a 3D engine in GC'd languages given a) existing C++ engines and b) sightings of Rust on the horizon.
  - AceJohnny2 12y ago
    Ah, when lumped with GC I was wondering if there was a new trend in memory management that was confusingly called VR as well :)
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    I know of missile control systems done in Real Time Java. Just one example, http://www.atego.com/pressreleases/pressitem/aonix-perc-ultra-virtual-machine-passes-muster-on-modernized-guided-missile http://www.atego.com/pressreleases/pressitem/aonix-perc-ultr... Better no GC jitter....
thoughtpolice 12y ago
TIL Rust will be single-handedly used to rewrite every single GC'd program in existence, and furthermore only VR systems like Oculus will be relevant after that, so why bother dealing with any of the actually-hard problems of the real world and improving the existing technology we'll have today, and for years to come? Good to know.
pjmlp 12y ago
> the opposition isn't just Apple anymore, though they dealt the first blow. Funny how the technical inability to write a decent GC for Objective-C made them the hero of ARC.
kibwen 12y ago
The Rust developers will be the first to tell you that if you can get away with writing your application in a GC'd language, you probably should. Garbage collectors really are fantastic pieces of technology if you aren't heavily bound by memory or speed constraints. Rust exists to fulfill a need in the domains where GCs are not acceptable, not to obviate GCs entirely. It merely offers the industry a viable alternative to the typical ravages of rampant manual memory mismanagement.

by pshc 12y ago

AceJohnny2 12y ago

what's virtual reality in this context?

pshc 12y ago
Oculus Rift and friends. VR needs extremely consistent latency and has very tight deadlines. Ideally, you render 90 FPS and never miss a frame. GC pauses are out of the question, so if you're going to use GC, you need to be real-time without any degenerate stop-the-world cases. The linked article ostensibly delivers this, but there's no real-world evidence. Given your tight time budget, you also don't want to pay the "GC tax". GC just makes your life harder in this environment. There also isn't really any good reason to write a 3D engine in GC'd languages given a) existing C++ engines and b) sightings of Rust on the horizon.
- AceJohnny2 12y ago
  Ah, when lumped with GC I was wondering if there was a new trend in memory management that was confusingly called VR as well :)
- pjmlp 12y ago
  I know of missile control systems done in Real Time Java. Just one example, http://www.atego.com/pressreleases/pressitem/aonix-perc-ultra-virtual-machine-passes-muster-on-modernized-guided-missile http://www.atego.com/pressreleases/pressitem/aonix-perc-ultr... Better no GC jitter....

thoughtpolice 12y ago

TIL Rust will be single-handedly used to rewrite every single GC'd program in existence, and furthermore only VR systems like Oculus will be relevant after that, so why bother dealing with any of the actually-hard problems of the real world and improving the existing technology we'll have today, and for years to come? Good to know.

pjmlp 12y ago

> the opposition isn't just Apple anymore, though they dealt the first blow. Funny how the technical inability to write a decent GC for Objective-C made them the hero of ARC.

kibwen 12y ago

The Rust developers will be the first to tell you that if you can get away with writing your application in a GC'd language, you probably should. Garbage collectors really are fantastic pieces of technology if you aren't heavily bound by memory or speed constraints. Rust exists to fulfill a need in the domains where GCs are not acceptable, not to obviate GCs entirely. It merely offers the industry a viable alternative to the typical ravages of rampant manual memory mismanagement.