Pyston 0.5 Released As A Faster Python JIT

[bug77]

Python also has a concept of weak references which you would use so the circular reference only exists momentarily

Java also has weak references, but they don't leak into the language syntax. But if it enables 10x faster GC, maybe it's worth the trade off.

[CrystalGamma]

Java also has weak references, but they don't leak into the language syntax. But if it enables 10x faster GC, maybe it's worth the trade off.

Actually, according to the release notes, performance dropped by 10% in this release, most of which is the switch to refcounting …

[Luke_Wolf]

Actually, according to the release notes, performance dropped by 10% in this release, most of which is the switch to refcounting …

Well, all memory management techniques have a cost associated with them, garbage collection mostly gets a bad rap because people look at synthetic benchmarks and fail to understand that it's not representational of the real world, because synthetics have very simple memory management problems whereas in the real world you need to set up some sort of management framework. The main problem with garbage collection is not speed, but determinism although that's basically irrelevant for almost all workloads that don't care about real time.