Q 4 C. Bauer & G. King (13) and JavaRanchers: garbage collection and pooling

[Gian Franco]

The issue of GC touched in this thread
particularly interests me, due to recent stability issues with
our application.

Amongst other things, I was wondering if one
can really rely on the GC when it comes to
pooling. Isn't it so that one can't command
the GC just merely give it a hint. Therefore
it might get easy for a connectivity problem to
escalate, and hence the source of the problem
difficult to trace back?

Cheers,

Gian Franco
[ September 02, 2004: Message edited by: Gian Franco Casula ]

[Alexandru Popescu]

Isn't it so that one can't command the GC just merely give it a hint.

This is true. But going back to your question I was wondering what other solution do we have? If the one of the most important things in Java cannot be trusted what else is it left?
I think we must concentrate on having a good programming and good configuration (adapted for the solution in case).

I don't think a pool of instances (which is not something recommended anymore) will help avoid bad programming and bad configurations.

./pope