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Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:31:09 +0800
Message-ID: <9623c9a50903251831i2e69900m2cdfab6df5d99ee0@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [drlvm][GarbageCollector] SoftReferences
From: Xiao-Feng Li <xiaofeng.li@gmail.com>
To: dev@harmony.apache.org
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Hi, Salvador,

SoftReference is supported in DRLVM GC. I don't know what you mean for
"optimization in the SoftReference". Do you mean that, SoftReferences
are often used to implement object caching in a Java application? If
that is what you mean, it is not what GC cares, because it is an
optimization at application level, where SoftReferences are used as a
handy tool to keep some dead but may-be-useful-in-future objects.

In my understanding, those Weak Reference things are an utility
provided to Java programmer to manage their objects life cycle. Java
is supposed to manage all the objects automatically for the
programmer, but sometimes the programmer wants to have control over
their objects. It is a bit awkward, since Java should have been more
intelligent to do this kind of tasks automatically for the programmer
or with some hints from the programmer.

Thanks,
xiaofeng

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Salvador Canelas
<salvador.canelas@ist.utl.pt> wrote:
> Greetings
>
> I'm interested in the DRLVM garbage collector features. I was reading the
> DRLVM development tasks and would like to know more about the task about
> implementing SoftReferences. Is this list updated and this features is still
> missing or it has already been implemented? If it's already implemented I
> would like to know if there's any kind of optimization in the SoftReferences
> and if caching is used in that optimization.
>
> Best Regards, Salvador Canelas
>
>


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