Pluggable GC

Hi all,
i would like to know if any effort has already be made to have
something like a pluggable gc in Smalltalk.
For example, it could be nice to be able to have a hard-realtime gc in
ST for embedded or robotic systems.

Regards,
--
Serge Stinckwich
UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC), Hanoi, Vietnam
Every DSL ends up being Smalltalk
http://doesnotunderstand.org/

I think it's best to distinguish between the act of collecting garbage
and the management of said activities.  For example, in VW, the
management of GC is mostly on the image side and thus you can decide
e.g.: not to GC (with the exception of scavenging).  Nevertheless, the
problem is quite involved and I am not sure how pluggable a GC could be
made because at the end of the day either the image controls (or
simplifies, or assumes) too much and ties the VM's hands, or the VM
doesn't pay attention to what the image wants.

On 8/3/10 20:30 , Serge Stinckwich wrote:

Hi Serge,

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 5:30 AM, Serge Stinckwich
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> i would like to know if any effort has already be made to have
> something like a pluggable gc in Smalltalk.

none that I knew, but ...

> For example, it could be nice to be able to have a hard-realtime gc in
> ST for embedded or robotic systems.

... others have been there; in the Java world, there exists the
(popular) MMTk framework (http://jikesrvm.org/MMTk) that is being used
in at least one large research VM (Jikes).

Sorry if this doesn't help, but some of the design implications should
be the same.

Best,

Michael