Jon L. White

Title: Memory Management Strategies Pioneered in Lisp Systems, or else 'I Forget ...

Abstract: This talk will review a number of memory management strategies pioneered by Lisp implementations, with a focus on the unique goals of the various techniques.  It is specifically not about Garbage Collection, although the broad stroke of these methods will be outlined (such as reference counting, mark-and-sweep, generation scavenging, and compactification.)  Instead the main thesis presented herein will be the avoidance of "costly" GC phases by the use of techniques such as (1) controllable consing Areas including "pure" or read-only isolated segments, (2) explicit Resource allocation-and-reclamation packages, (2) dynamic extent and bounded extent consing for cost-free reclamation.  Attention will be given to the kinds of special compiler and runtime strategies to support these memory technique models.