Re: Resources to learn common lisp?

From	Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.lisp
Subject	Re: Resources to learn common lisp?
Date	2026-06-11 00:22 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<110cv4b$13kte$7@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(3 earlier) <87pl21m1i6.fsf@gmail.com> <1107n17$3k6ea$5@dont-email.me> <jwv5x3rg80j.fsf-monnier+comp.lang.lisp@gnu.org> <110a9pp$ckmk$6@dont-email.me> <jwvqzmetvqw.fsf-monnier+comp.lang.lisp@gnu.org>

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On Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:36:50 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:

> On Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:06:17 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:36:50 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>>
>>> Probably not "for speed": it takes a significant amount of work to
>>> make a reference-counting system that's competitive (speedwise)
>>> with a tracing GC, because there tend to be *many* refcount
>>> updates (and it gets worse if you support concurrency, where most
>>> of those updates need to be made atomic).
>>
>> But those refcount updates are on live objects, which means they
>> are more likely to reside in some level of CPU cache.
>>
>> Whereas a garbage collector, by design, is spending much of its
>> time hitting long-dead objects, which would likely have long since
>> disappeared from the cache. That’s going to add an order of
>> magnitude or two to your execution time -- which is why we have
>> caches in the first place.
>
> AFAIK, real-life usually disagrees with your analysis, which is why
> refcount is rarely used in practice for implementations of languages
> with automatic memory management.

Feel free to show any performance measures that back up your claim --
particularly memory usage. I would say the only reason the Python
approach hasn’t been done before now is because it’s hard to do --
pure brute-force GC has always simply been the path of least
resistance.

Thread

Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-20 22:53 +0100
  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Ben Bacarisse <ben@bsb.me.uk> - 2026-02-20 22:00 +0000
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-21 12:25 +0100
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-02-21 10:24 -0500
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-21 21:30 +0000
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-22 01:08 +0100
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-22 04:59 +0000
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Madhu <enometh@meer.net> - 2026-02-22 10:59 +0530
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-22 21:48 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-08 12:43 -0400
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-08 12:41 -0400
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-08 20:02 +0000
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-09 00:23 -0400
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:28 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:32 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 12:27 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-11 17:33 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 12:16 -0400
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:53 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Axel Reichert <mail@axel-reichert.de> - 2026-06-09 12:07 +0200
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-10 00:14 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-11 17:22 +0000
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 00:35 +0000
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-08 12:37 -0400
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 00:33 +0000
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-09 00:22 -0400
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> - 2026-06-09 01:22 -0400
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:17 +0000
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:50 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 12:40 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-11 00:26 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-11 05:27 -0400
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 12:24 -0400
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-11 05:57 -0400
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> - 2026-06-11 21:07 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-12 13:06 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-13 00:13 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 07:25 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-13 08:25 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 08:46 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 08:52 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> - 2026-06-13 00:55 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 07:43 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-12 12:42 +0000
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-06-09 09:36 -0400
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-10 00:06 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-06-10 08:43 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-11 00:22 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-06-11 08:57 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-12 00:16 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-11 06:37 -0400
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-11 17:42 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-12 00:16 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-12 12:34 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-13 00:11 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-13 04:06 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 08:36 +0000
  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tpeplt <tpeplt@gmail.com> - 2026-02-20 17:44 -0500
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-21 12:30 +0100
  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-02-20 23:50 +0000
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-02-21 00:24 +0000
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Andreas Eder <a_eder_muc@web.de> - 2026-02-21 11:36 +0100
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-21 12:44 +0100
  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-03-31 17:47 -0400
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-03-31 23:41 +0000
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tpeplt <tpeplt@gmail.com> - 2026-04-01 13:23 -0400
  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Peri Didaskalou <pfd@torfree.net> - 2026-05-01 10:52 -0400
  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Peri Didaskalou <pfd@torfree.net> - 2026-05-01 10:57 -0400
  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Peri Didaskalou <pfd@torfree.net> - 2026-05-01 11:06 -0400
  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-01 14:56 -0400
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? "Robert B. Carleton" <rbc@rbcarleton.net> - 2026-06-01 23:02 +0000
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-02 21:32 -0400
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-03 03:16 +0000

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