>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:
Richard> I guess what we've seen is that the default handling
Richard> of growing a larger heap space in GCL is not right
Richard> for Maxima, given certain problems. And that rebuilding
Richard> on some new systems causes problems.
Richard> 1. Do we know that the growing of larger heap space
Richard> is an inherent problem, or just related to our inability
Richard> to configure it?
Richard> 2. Do we know that CMUCL and CLISP are better in
Richard> this regard?
For CMUCL, the heap space size is fixed at startup to a fairly large
size of 512 MB or so. Once started, you can't change it, but it can
be changed via a command-line option up to some platform-specific
maximum.
I don't think CMUCL has any problems on allocating objects from the
heap, as long as you don't exceed the heap size. CMUCL on x86 has a
generational GC that can be tuned in some ways. This might help make
maxima run faster.
Richard> I guess I do not have a specific proposal here if we
Richard> somehow decide GCL should be maintained, but no one
Richard> will volunteer to do it! (Pay someone?)
Diversity is good. Sorry, I can't volunteer to maintain it.
Ray