reference counting for garbage collection

[Alex Martelli]

"Gareth McCaughan" <Gareth.McCaughan at pobox.com> wrote in message
news:slrna1aaba.1pab.Gareth.McCaughan at g.local...
    ...
> It's arguably bad style to rely on objects going away as
> soon as they're no longer referenced, because if Python
> switches over completely to a "real" GC some time in the
> future then it will stop being true.

No "if" or "future" needed -- http://www.jython.org/ -- it
is Python, it works, it's here today, and it DOES "switch
over completely to a real GC" (that of the JVM it's running
on).  With http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/ and the 2.1 beta
version of Jython, it's getting SO good it's unbelievable.

OK, both Java 2 SDK 1.4 _and_ Jython 2.1 are still betas,
but I think they're definitely already worth trying out.

Wouldn't it be a pity if the only thing standing between
your Python application and the ability to deploy it on a
JVM was the application's widespread reliance on "objects
going away ASAP"...?-)


Alex