Nice garbage collector for C extensions!

[Michael Hudson]

nicksjacobson at yahoo.com (Nick Jacobson) writes:

> In the Python documentation on Extending and Embedding (in section
> 1.10), there's a quote:
> 
> "Maybe some day a sufficiently portable automatic garbage collector
> will be available for C. Until then, we'll have to live with reference
> counts."
>
> What about the Boehm-Demers-Weiser conservative garbage collector (at
> http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/)?

It's been tried, with unspectacular results.  Google can probably find
more gory details.

> They state, "The collector is not completely portable, but the
> distribution includes ports to most standard PC and UNIX/Linux
> platforms. The collector should work on Linux, *BSD, recent Windows
> versions, MacOS X, HP/UX, Solaris, Tru64, Irix and a few other
> operating systems. Some ports are more polished than others."

Python has been ported to the Palm Pilot, Nokia Series 60, VMS,
Amiga... 

Cheers,
mwh

-- 
  Hmm, that attempt at trolling did not work out as well as I had
  hoped.                                     -- Steve VanDevender, asr