Garbage generation in java.

Here is what I think of java garbage collection:

In java programs, the use of pointers is forbidden by virtue of a design strategy or a security policy. Without pointers, functions cannot access objects across stack frames, among many other limitations. The inability to pass objects to and from functions will limit the scope of a programming language at large. To remedy this, in java, user defined objects are inherently passed by address (termed as reference), in contrast to C and C++ where passing arguments by their addresses is a volitional choice.

Conventionally, when arguments are passed by value, what the callee recieves is an isolated copy of the passed object. In C, when passed by address, the callee can manipulate the caller's arguments. In C++ the same applies, along with the call by reference. The user objects are normally created on the stack. In cases of producer functions where the function generates and returns an object, the allocation has to be made in the heap (locally created objects cannot be returned from a function, which causes dangling reference). Such cases are not so often, so one can free the object manually which was 'newed'. Two modes of creating user objects are:

Class obj();              => object and the handle created on the stack.
Class *obj = new Class();    => object in the heap, reference on the stack.

In java, without pointers, the language semantics does not allow the above flexibility and we have only one way to create objects – either everything on the stack or in the heap, not both. Creating all the objects on the stack is a bad choice, since objects whose life span is greater than the defining method will be destroyed when the frame is popped off while the function’s return, essentially forbidding methods from returning generated objects, causing java to be an incomplete language. As a workaround, all the objects are created in the heap. Now, as a matter of fact, it is difficult for a programmer to delete all the objects he 'newed' which are quite many, rather most of them.

Hence the garbage and hence the collector.

In a non-java programming paradigm, it is like allocating memory at arbitrary heap locations, and later scanning the entire virtual memory to clean up the filth.

Garbage collection is not a java feature. It is a compromise. A consequence of refraining from pointers. A skillful attempt to mend a defect. An unchecked sun heredity and an unbridled software hypothesis which we carried and dragged all the way along.