Patrick Dussud: Managing Garbage Collection (Channel 9)

Patrick Dussud: Managing Garbage Collection

Posted: Feb 08, 2008 at 8:28 AM

By: Charles

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11 Comments

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Where do objects go when they aren't used anymore (and how to know that they are no longer useful to the executing code that created them)? Might seem like a silly question to most developers, but that's what Technical Fellow Patrick Dussud has been dealing with for most of his career. His special area of focus is implementing garbage collection (GC) in various programming languages and systems (from JScript to the CLR).

In this episode, we discuss with Patrick how GC concepts and implementations have evolved over the years, how the GC in the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) might be different from others, and how GC improvements in the future may need to change to deal with advancements in both software and hardware systems.

Patrick also has some interesting things to say about clowns.

This episode of Behind the Code is hosted by Robert Hess, Director in the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group. Although new to hosting Behind the Code, Robert is no stranger to hosting technical shows. For more than seven years, he hosted The .NET Show, a popular on-demand webcast that focused on providing architectural and programming information to developers around the world.

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Having recently been required to extensively enhance some unmanaged C++ code, I feel the pain of not having the services of a garbage collector. What were they thinking? I know what they were thinking. They were thinking how slowly programs would run when the garbage collector was running half the time. But, nowadays, with 2GB or greater main memory commonly available and multiple CPU systems, the garbage collector is rightly in style. And it saves many, many cycles in a programmer's brain. It is simply too easy to lose track of a disused object. Long running programs can end up having to be restarted simply to reclaim memory space. I love my garbage collector. Wouldn't be without. I'm impressed that it works reliably and very greatful.

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gaurav.net

Feb 08, 2008 at 10:32 AM

Awesome Awesome Awesome....
Super Cool...
Thx...
duncanmak

Feb 08, 2008 at 5:33 PM

Was there a section on LISP that got cut out from the final video? If so, could that be made available as well?
tomkirbygreen

Feb 08, 2008 at 8:00 PM

Fantastic. I'm adding it to my personal C9 archive! Is there any chance we could have some interviews that specifically address (managed) runtime evolution? In particular I'd love to hear about the tighter integration of the DLR into the CLR and the thinking behind adding 'dynamic' to C#. Finally it would be great to hear from Don Box about 'D' or do we have to wait for PDC 2008 for that? Anyway keep the videos coming they are very much appreciated
Chadk excuse me - do you has a flavor?

Feb 09, 2008 at 1:27 AM

Robert Hess as the Behind The Code Host? Bloody awesome!!
earnshaw Jack Sleeps

Feb 11, 2008 at 12:32 AM

Having recently been required to extensively enhance some unmanaged C++ code, I feel the pain of not having the services of a garbage collector. What were they thinking? I know what they were thinking. They were thinking how slowly programs would run when the garbage collector was running half the time. But, nowadays, with 2GB or greater main memory commonly available and multiple CPU systems, the garbage collector is rightly in style. And it saves many, many cycles in a programmer's brain. It is simply too easy to lose track of a disused object. Long running programs can end up having to be restarted simply to reclaim memory space. I love my garbage collector. Wouldn't be without. I'm impressed that it works reliably and very greatful.
littleguru <3 Seattle

Feb 13, 2008 at 2:43 AM

Chadk wrote:

Robert Hess as the Behind The Code Host? Bloody awesome!!

He is really doing a great job!
Robert Hess Changing the world, one cocktail at a time.

Feb 13, 2008 at 3:29 PM

Glad you're enjoying the show! I know that I'm having fun hosting it.

There were perhaps a few extra comments about Lisp that we cut from the filming, but we didn't go into details about Lisp as a language, although that would have been fun, especially since Lisp is one of the few languages I've never really had any dealings with. I understand that there are a couple of CLR implementations available.

-Robert
duncanmak

Feb 14, 2008 at 4:25 PM

Robert Hess wrote:

There were perhaps a few extra comments about Lisp that we cut from the filming, but we didn't go into details about Lisp as a language, although that would have been fun, especially since Lisp is one of the few languages I've never really had any dealings with. I understand that there are a couple of CLR implementations available.

So would those moments be made available ever?
dcharles

May 27, 2008 at 8:19 AM

He's had interesting experiences! I can't imagine having written the program that the teacher uses to grade my classmates, that probably guranteed him an A+ !
Scorpion

Oct 05, 2008 at 12:30 PM

This is my first day at C9..already loving it
gogole

Oct 15, 2008 at 5:33 AM

In-the-know with the intricacies of garbage collection, i like it

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