Re: GC, exit-to-system

[Robert W. Kerns <RWK@YUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 22:25:30 PDT
    From: franz!fizzy!jkf@kim.berkeley.edu


    >> From: David Moon
    >> ...
    >> The concept of calling the GC at a particular
    >> time is not meaningful either; the GC runs in parallel with normal
    >> computation.  I'm sure there are other implementations with different
    >> ideas about these concepts.  They just don't make very much sense to
    >> standardize, because there is so much variation.

    I think that you may have missed the point.  There are certain
    functions performed by many (but perhaps not all) of the
    implementations of common lisp.   Such functions include stopping
    a computation and performing a garbage collection, and exiting to the
    operating system.  It would be a good thing if the names for these
    functions were the same across all common lisps where such
    functionality exists.    

    - john foderaro
      Franz Inc.

I think this would just encourage people to write non-portable
code.  Calling the GC from a program may make it work better on
one implementation, while making it work not at all, or extremely
poorly, on another.