[erlang-questions] ets vs list

[Ulf Wiger]

On 09/14/2010 02:40 AM, Robert Virding wrote:
> 
> 
> * Yes, there are garbage collection algorithms that incrementally
> collect data which would allow you to have LARGE process heaps without
> incurring long pause for collection. These are, however, more complex
> and costly and it is not clear how much you actually gain by using
> them. Multi-core environments don't help either in this respect.

I think this is one thing that is seldom overlooked. Erlang is a bit
unusual in its use of per-process garbage collection, but this is a
model that fits multicore very well. The enablers are the fine-grained
concurrency together with share-nothing semantics, and the result
is that Erlang can pretty robustly achieve soft real-time
characteristics even when the VM is carrying gigabytes of data,
and still have a relatively simple garbage collector.

BR,
Ulf W