Python's garbage collection was Re: Python reliability

[Paul Rubin]

Tom Anderson <twic at urchin.earth.li> writes:
> Has anyone looked into using a real GC for python? I realise it would
> be a lot more complexity in the interpreter itself, but it would be
> faster, more reliable, and would reduce the complexity of extensions.

The next PyPy sprint (this week I think) is going to focus partly on GC.

> Hmm. Maybe it wouldn't make extensions easier or more reliable. You'd
> still need some way of figuring out which variables in C-land held
> pointers to objects; if anything, that might be harder, unless you
> want to impose a horrendous JAI-like bondage-and-discipline interface.

I'm not sure what JAI is (do you mean JNI?) but you might look at how
Emacs Lisp does it.  You have to call a macro to protect intermediate
heap results in C functions from GC'd, so it's possible to make
errors, but it cleans up after itself and is generally less fraught
with hazards than Python's method is.