RE: MzScheme for Embedding

[Matthew Flatt <mflatt@cs.utah.edu>]

Quoting Brent Fulgham:
> >   (B) MzScheme seems like it has a fairly large memory footprint.
> > 
> > Yes, it does. Matthew is working on a version that will use 
> > generational copy collection in addition to Hans's "non-cooperative" 
> > collector. We're testing it now. 
> >
> Fantastic.  Any ideas on what kind of improvement this might yield?

In this case, Matthias blames conservative ("non-cooperative") GC a bit
too much. Precise GC might make MzScheme's initial footprint 10%
smaller, or it might be 10% bigger; it mostly depends on how the
collector is tuned.

The reason I'm working on precise GC is long-term performance and
predictability, rather than short-term effects. Actually, my experience
with precise GC so far confirms that conservative GC works remarkably
well in the short term. Of course, the longer a program runs,
conservative GC's little approximations take their toll, magnified by
an inability to compact the heap.

----------------------------------------

To go back to the original question: I've never been comfortable with
the size of MzScheme's initial footprint. Despite occasional attempts,
I haven't been able to shrink it significantly. But the footprint
hasn't grown significantly, either, at least in the last two years.

Matthew