[gclist] Baker's treadmill improvments.

Nick Barnes nickb@harlequin.co.uk
Fri, 31 Jan 1997 14:15:57 +0000


> At 09:55 AM 1/31/97 +0000, you wrote:
> >> First applications that use the treadmill will be giving the collector 
> >> atoms of time when they are idle. This more than fills the collectors 
> >> needs for time and can be used to finalize and free objects instead of 
> >> having that work done when a header is needed.
> >
> >Many applications are never idle, or need to be able to run for hours
> >or days at a time with no idle time. Should these applications not use
> >the treadmill?
> 
> Thats right. The treadmill trades lots of efficiency for extreme incremental
> behavior where the largest collector delay is very small. If you don't need
> that you are being very silly to use the treadmill.

What if you do need that, and yet are never idle (or may run for hours
without idle time)? The two are completely orthogonal.

Nick B