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Garbage Collection Can Be Faster Than Stack Allocation

Report ID:
TR-045-86
Authors:
Date:
May 1986
Pages:
6
Download Formats:
[PDF]

Abstract:

Optimizing LISP compilers try to deduce which closures (function-call frames) may be stack-allocated, because heap-allocated closures must be garbage-collected at (presumably) great expense. In fact, with enough memory, garbage-collection becomes cheaper than decrementing a stack pointer. Special hardware,
intricate garbage-collection algorithms, and fancy compiler analysis become unnecessary.

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