A couple garbage collector questions

[Douglas Alan]

I have a couple of questions regarding the new Python garbage
collector:

  (1) Why does it use the rather unusual algorithm it does, rather
      than a more typical mark and sweep?  The per-object storage cost
      for the extra reference count is surely greater than the bit or
      two required for a typical mark and sweep.

  (2) Why does the algorithm need back-pointers for the object chain?

Just curious.  Thanks.

|>oug