Re: C is too old? opinions?

goose wrote:
Rob Thorpe wrote:
pete wrote:
W Marsh wrote:

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 11:53:06 -0700, "Dann Corbit" <dcorbit@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


I think you have a reading comprehension problem.


You were lumping Java and .NET together, suggesting that they were
inadequate in real-time systems for the same reason.

Go on then - I would like to know how garbage collection affects
real-time systems.

http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/13491

Many programming languages are unsuitable for real time
programming due to their non-deterministic nature. For example,
languages that have a built-in garbage collector are very problematic
because the garbage collector might "wake up" at the wrong moment,
halting all other operations until it finishes. A real time software
application that controls the amount of fuel supplied to an airplane's
engine at lift off cannot be interrupted by a garbage collector, not
even momentarily.

This isn't really true of programming langauges but of implementations.
I is quite possible to write a garbage collector that does not cause
pauses. Some Java micro-edition implementations use them so they can
be used for real-time purposes.

Most normal implementations of Garbage collection that come with normal
tools occasionally cause a "pause" or "world-stop". These methods are
used because they are more efficient in overall cycles than continuous
GCs.

Now I'm really curious; how does the garbage collector run
in deterministic time? Is it possibly a case of running the gc
after every X operations knowing that no more than Y
memory has to be released and that doing that will require
no more than Z time?

There is a lot more information on Sun's Real Time Java Spec site,
http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/realtime.jsp
see, e.g., http://java.sun.com/docs/hotspot/gc5.0/gc_tuning_5.html


goose,
alphabet soup

.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: C is too old? opinions?
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    (comp.programming)
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