So far we have assumed a monolithic approach to garbage collection: all objects are managed by the same collection algorithm and all are collected at the same time. However there is no reason why this should be so and substantial performance benefits accrue from a more discriminating treatment of objects. The best known example is generational collection [Lieberman and Hewitt, 1983; Ungar, 1984], which segregates objects by age and preferentially collects younger objects. There are many reasons why it might be beneficial to treat different categories of object in different ways. Some but not all of these reasons are related to the collector technology that might be used to manage them. As we saw in earlier chapters, ...
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