what's the point of rpython?

[Paul Rubin]

skip at pobox.com writes:
> http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=lock+free+reference+counting

I found a paper by Detlefs et al describing a method which is

a) patented
b) can potentially lock out some threads from ever running, and
c) relies on a hardware instruction (double compare and swap)
   that's not available on most processors.

There are well known concurrent and parallel GC techniques that
don't have that problem, see for example Cheng's dissertation:
  http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/2001/CMU-CS-01-174.pdf

GHC 6.10 uses a parallel stop-the-world gc that is simpler, I think.