Reference counting garbage collection

[Markus Schaber]

Hi,

Paul Rubin <phr-n2001 at nightsong.com> schrub:

>> In tests people have done by replacing Python's reference counting by
>> Boehm's collector (reported to this newsgroup) there have been marked
>> speed advantages to reference counting in most cases. This is
>> empirical evidence that reference counting works well *for Python* in
>> most cases.
> 
> I guess that might be the case, at least with the current body of
> Python programs.  I'm thinking of Python's implementation in terms of
> whether it's suitable for large, long-running programs, and it's
> not clear whether anyone really writes those in Python.

Zope comes in my mind...

> The combination of RC and GC (or cycle breaking) that's been described
> here sounds like a pretty good approach.  It wasn't described in the
> Python docs that I read, which described a pure RC system, but that's
> ok :).

Maybe your docs describe Python 1.5 (which is still the default python 
for debian, e. G.), but today, python 2.1.1 is stable and 2.2.X is 
cutting edge :-)

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