Re: scratch/igc: Implications of MPS being asynchronous

[Stefan Kangas]

Gerd Möllmann <gerd.moellmann@gmail.com> writes:

> Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>      "The MPS is asynchronous: this means that it might be scanning,
>>      moving, or collecting, at any point in time (potentially, between
>>      any pair of instructions in your program)."  (Chapter 2)
>
> Among the things that made me think it's concurrent. Still a bit grumpy.

Fully understandable!  The MPS documentation really should be much
clearer on this point.

OTOH, having a GC that is merely incremental and generational is not too
shabby, plus if Ravenbrook or someone else decides to lift the
restriction, we would benefit from that also.

>> We also have a couple places where we currently call
>> `inhibit_garbage_collection`.  Do we need to do anything about them?
>
> No, it's a nop with igc. One could compile it out, maybe, but I leave
> it to future generations to save these nanoseconds :-).

I'd compile it out mainly for documentation purposes.
I'll send a patch.

> Patch LGTM. Thanks!

Thanks!