[gclist] Garbage collection FAQ.

[Nick Kramer]

> > > Should we have a garbage collection FAQ. It could also become part of
> > > other FAQs on the net. What should the topics be?
> > > 
> > > Algorithms.
> > Basic:
>         I can write sections on the basic algorithms.

Heck, why don't we just point people at a copy of Paul Wilson's Big-GC
Survey?  Alternately, we could see if we could "excerpt" an extremely
large quantity of his paper.

>> Folk myths?

I'd like to see a well-written GC-advocacy text.  Addressing myths like:
    - GC is too slow
       - GC creates long pause times
    - malloc() is blazingly fast
    - My custom-written allocator can outperform any GC, even though
      I never actually measured its performance
    - Real Programmers(tm) don't write code with memory leaks
    - GC can't be used with Real Languages(tm) like C and C++
    - GC is a new and unproven technology

Of course, we'd also need to address the other side:
    - GC doesn't solve *all* memory leaks
    - GC is not a silver bullet

On a more mundane level, who knows about this mailing list?  I see a lot
of people from comp.compilers, but there's not much to indicate many
Lispers (for instance) know about this list.


-Nick Kramer