Progress on the Gilectomy (Posting On Python-List Prohibited)

[Paul Rubin]

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99 at gmail.com> writes:
> while “memory footprint” depends on how much memory is actually being
> retained in accessible objects.

If the object won't be re-accessed but is still retained by gc, then
refcounting won't free it either.

> Once again: The trouble with GC is, it doesn’t know when to kick in:
> it just keeps on allocating memory until it runs out.

When was the last time you encountered a problem like that in practice?
It's almost never an issue.  "Runs out" means reached an allocation
threshold that's usually much smaller than the program's memory region.
And as you say, you can always manually trigger a gc if the need arises.