Not an expert but bear in mind that there can't really be one single thing called a 'good' garbage collector, because the behaviour of the programs that produce the garbage can be hugely varied, and the garbage so produced can likewise be hugely varied, and how you want to recover it can depend on the platform you're running on (if embedded, you probably want reference counting the tight memory, in other circumstances you might be very happy just to leak everything and let the OS clean up at the end. Edit: yes, it's sometimes ok to leak).
As somebody says elsewhere, it's multidimensional issue and a single dimensional garbage collector can't be a brilliant match for everything.
The book "Garbage Collection" by Richard Jones, recently discussed on HN, is something I'd highly recommend you buy and read.
As somebody says elsewhere, it's multidimensional issue and a single dimensional garbage collector can't be a brilliant match for everything.
The book "Garbage Collection" by Richard Jones, recently discussed on HN, is something I'd highly recommend you buy and read.