pillaiindu

pillaiindu

Are garbage-collected languages good for system programming?

I have heard many times that languages with a garbage collector aren’t great for system programming. Today I saw a book titled “Hands-On System Programming with Go”.

Is Go or any other garbage collected language good for system programming? What are the pros and cons of using a garbage collected language for system programming?

Is the development of Docker (which is developed in Go) considered as system-programming? Or does system programming only mean developing things like Kernel and other low level things etc.

Most Liked

OvermindDL1

OvermindDL1

It’s not necessarily overhead in some terms. Some GC’s try to keep memory low, often using things like stop-the-world collection or eating up another thread needlessly to keep it down. Some GC’s try to keep pauses minimal (like Go) so their memory can grow unbounded in many situations (and low pause is not no-pause). Python is interesting as most of its memory allocation is handled by smart pointers so they get evicted immediately, but it still has a loop scanner that runs on occasion for when people make memory loops. Many/most GC languages also don’t let you control when memory is released, or even from where you can get the memory in the first place, which is extremely important on some arch’s.

In short, GC’s just add some cost to a program that you generally don’t want on system languages. As well as GC’s only handle the resource known as ‘memory’, other resources like file or socket handles, PIN access, etc… still have to be done either manually, or if the language allows some kind of finalizer then you can let the resource be GC’d “eventually”, which is really bad on some resources.

Having a language that can handle any resource with no runtime cost is preferred.

AstonJ

AstonJ

I think it’s because of the overhead impacting memory and performance. Languages like C and Rust operate much closer to the metal, so trade convenience and features for speed and performance.

I don’t have much experience here so maybe @OvermindDL1, @NobbZ, @Qqwy or others can offer a better explanation :smiley:

pillaiindu

pillaiindu

Thank you @OvermindDL1 for the insights! :heart:

Where Next?

Popular Backend topics Top

AstonJ
Thought this video was interesting: What are your thoughts? Any areas you agree/disagree? Which web-dev tech do you think is worth ado...
New
DevotionGeo
I know that these benchmarks might not be the exact picture of real-world scenario, but still I expect a Rust web framework performing a ...
New
New
New
First poster: bot
proposal: Go 2: permit types to say they may only be created by containing package · Issue #43123 · golang/go. It would be useful to per...
New
AstonJ
If you are experiencing Rails console using 100% CPU on your dev machine, then updating your development and test gems might fix the issu...
New
Cellane
Phoenix 1.6.0 got released last week, with built-in authentication and mailer generators, a whole new HEEx (HTML-aware Embedded Elixir) e...
New
mafinar
We always have fun in this forum around this time of the year, discussing the days’ (or yesterdays’) challenges and talking through solut...
New
apoorv-2204
Hi everyone, I’m considering pursuing the Elixir/Erlang certification exam offered by Erlang Solutions and wanted to check in with the c...
New
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
If it’s a mechanical keyboard, which switches do you have? Would you recommend it? Why? What will your next keyboard be? Pics always w...
New
AstonJ
Or looking forward to? :nerd_face:
New
AstonJ
poll poll Be sure to check out @Dusty’s article posted here: An Introduction to Alternative Keyboard Layouts It’s one of the best write-...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
“Finding the Boundaries” Hero’s Journey with Noel Rappin @noelrappin Even when you’re ultimately right about what the future ho...
New
Exadra37
Oh just spent so much time on this to discover now that RancherOS is in end of life but Rancher is refusing to mark the Github repo as su...
New
AstonJ
We’ve talked about his book briefly here but it is quickly becoming obsolete - so he’s decided to create a series of 7 podcasts, the firs...
New
husaindevelop
Inside our android webview app, we are trying to paste the copied content from another app eg (notes) using navigator.clipboard.readtext ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight: Karl Stolley @karlstolley Logic! Rhetoric! Prag! Wow, what a combination. In this spotlight, we sit down with Karl ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight: Sophie DeBenedetto @SophieDeBenedetto The days of the traditional request-response web application are long gone, b...
New
AstonJ
This is cool! DEEPSEEK-V3 ON M4 MAC: BLAZING FAST INFERENCE ON APPLE SILICON We just witnessed something incredible: the largest open-s...
New