Python vs Java garbage collection?

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Since for Python, that's the documentation available on
> python.org, and that documentation _explicitly_ states that relying on
> timely finalization is a bad idea, relying upon it is, well, a bad idea
> if you want to write software that continues to work properly down the
> road.

It doesn't say it is a bad idea. Instead, 3.1 says

# An implementation is allowed to postpone garbage collection or omit it 
# altogether ...  the current implementation uses a reference-counting
# scheme ... which collects most objects as soon as they become
# unreachable

The documentation contains no assessment as to whether relying on the 
current implementation is a bad idea, nor an indication as to whether 
future implementations may differ (and we both know they won't).

I have explained the rationale for having these statements in the 
documentation (to make JPython a conforming implementation). Given this 
rationale, I still think that relying on the current implementation is a 
good idea in many cases.

> I do not think that CPython's finalization behavior will change.  I
> suggested it merely as a theoretical possibility.  Please stop treating
> it as if it were all I had ever said on the subject.

In the previous message you said "for all intents and purposes CPython
_could_ change". Maybe I misunderstood "for all intents and purposes" 
(I'm still uncertain what the exact translation of this phrase to German 
would be), or perhaps I misunderstood "_could_" (although I'm quite sure 
  that I do understand "could").

Regards,
Martin