Circular references and python

[Thomas Hamelryck]

Jason Stokes <jstok at bluedog.apana.org.au> wrote:

: LISP, Smalltalk, Java, Delphi and Eiffel implementations all use garbage
: collection as a standard techniqure.  More pertinantly, I don't *want* to
: manually manage object deallocation in my application, and manual memory
: management is the kind of low level process I expect a scripting language to
: protect me from.  I definitely think the Python interpreter should have a
: standard garbage collection mode, if only as an option.

I agree completely. It would be a major mistake not to make the introduction of true
garbage collection a priority in Python 2.0. Or at least a combination of reference 
counting and true garbage collection. I don't think this should be provided as an 
option. You don't want to create memory leaks or not depending on a compilation
or run time option! 

Cheers,

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Thomas Hamelryck    Institute of Molecular and Structural Biology
Aarhus University   Gustav Wieds Vej 10C
DK-8000 Aarhus C    Denmark