JEP 132: More-prompt finalization

[David Holmes]

Hi Tony,

On 6/01/2012 8:34 PM, Tony Printezis wrote:
> If each library could indicate to the GC whether the resource it manages
> is running low or not, using the API I mentioned, the GC could do the
> above automatically, behind the scenes, without the user having to do
> anything else.

I'm not sure a library writer has the necessary information to do this. 
Seems to me that how an application uses a particular type determines 
the scarcity of the resource. I can imagine something like:

void setFinalizationLimit(Class<?> cls, int limit)

so that GC runs finalization once a "reference count" reaches "limit". 
That limits the frequency of finalization, but the actual finalization 
cost may still be unacceptably high.

Cheers,
David

> Tony
>
>> Afterall the key thing about GC is it relieves the programmer from
>> having to manage object lifetimes, so if you don't know when the
>> object is no longer used you don't know when to call close.
>>
>> David