Subj : Re: JavaScript performance in the real world
To   : Shanti Rao
From : Brendan Eich
Date : Mon Sep 20 2004 02:46 pm

Shanti Rao wrote:

> Since SM doesn't know that it's 
> running out of system resources, memory needs to be recovered somehow.


The engine should do a better job, but it has punted most of the work to 
embedders since forever, and embeddings can schedule GC well enough for 
most situations -- many do.


> I guess that frequent GCs aren't the best way.


Right.


> I'm all for having the "delete" operator act immediately, since this 
> problem tends to happen when a single object (like a SQL result set) 
> owns a lot of system resources. It doesn't have to be called "delete" 
> either. In this case, I think the best solution is a way of telling the 
> ODBC driver to release the statement handles it no longer needs.


That's not a memory operation at all, but a mandatory release or close 
call that your code must provide, and that scripts must call.

Don't mix finalization up with timely release of resources, or commit of 
a transaction.  You can't guarantee that some script (errant or evil) 
has not stashed a reference to the object you're trying to deallocate 
away somewhere.  The object must remain alive till GC says it's garbage, 
but it certainly need not hold onto external or expensive/scarce 
internal resources.

/be

.