Evan Jones wrote:
The next page has a
micro-benchmark that shows reference counting performing very poorly.
Not to mention that Python has a garbage collector *anyway,* so wouldn't
it make sense to get rid of the reference counting?
It's not clear what these numbers exactly mean, but I don't believe
them. With the Python GIL, the increments/decrements don't have to
be atomic, which already helps in a multiprocessor system (as you
don't need a buslock). The actual costs of GC occur when a
collection happens - and it should always be possible to construct
cases where the collection needs longer, because it has to look
at so much memory.
I like reference counting because of its predictability. I
deliberately do
data = open(filename).read()
without having to worry about closing the file - just because
reference counting does it for me. I guess a lot of code will
break when you drop refcounting - perhaps unless an fopen
failure will trigger a GC.
Regards,
Martin
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