garbage collect

Aleks

I just finished working on a project using the Javelin Stamp, and I came to realize that the lack of garbage collect was really hindering my programming. I am considering switching my uController to the propellor chip. Does this chip have a garbage collect feature built in?

Mike Green

Garbage collection is an issue for programming systems that do what's called dynamic storage allocation. Java is one system that does this, so the lack of garbage collection on the Stamp version is a sometimes significant limitation. Spin doesn't do dynamic storage allocation. It does only static and stack-based storage allocation neither of which makes use of (or needs) garbage collection. Spin also doesn't have a number of features that are in Java. For example, there's minimal support for character strings and floating point is done by subroutine.

There is a project underway to be able to run Java on the Propeller. Take a look at recent postings in this forum for JVM (Java Virtual Machine) for the Propeller.