[webkit-dev] MessagePorts and garbage collection

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On May 7, 2009, at 12:28 PM, Darin Adler wrote:

> We consider the current JavaScriptCore protected set to be something  
> deprecated that we’d like to eliminate. We have been steadily  
> decreasing the number of uses of it. All other things being equal, I  
> think it would be good to keep the new mechanism separate.

I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that. For one thing, gc  
protect is exposed through the C API so we are committed to keeping it  
if only for that reason.

However, the purpose of Protect.h is different from the aim here. It  
is supposed to allow keeping a persistent reference to a JavaScript  
object from native code, for example if you have a C++ heap object  
that should keep a JS object alive. It's tricky to use, because it has  
the potential to create unbreakable GC cycles, but I think there are  
cases where it is useful.

I think two JS objects keeping each other alive across threads/heaps  
so long as either is rechable (or "active"), is a qualitatively  
different purpose which deserves a separate mechanism.

Another thing to keep in mind: although JavaScriptCore currently uses  
a mark/sweep GC, we should design something that can work with a  
copying GC or other advanced GC algorithms: (a) so it can work with v8  
and (b) so we can change JavaScriptCore's garbage collector in the  
future (this is something we plan to do).

  - Maciej