Got an Idea of GC. Please CC

Segmenting GC:
- Partition heap into N segments;
- Give each segment a bitmap, keeping what memory cells the segment references;
- After collecting a segment, compare its resulting bitmap to the original, then free now unused objects (bits that went from 1 to 0, and which also have 0 in other segments).

Pros:
- Incremental;
- Parallelizable into N threads;
- Collected memory can be distributed across N machines (share your memory accross Internet);
- Each segment could be future partitioned into subsegments, which are collectible separately.

Cons:
- Write barrier required;
- Bitmap memory is proportional to N;
- Execution time is proportional to memory_size/N.

>>42

How do circular references prevent having a guaranteed execution time?

Circular references impede incremental approaches, like references counting or segmenting the heap. I.e. you can't simply divide and conquer the problem, having to do a full pass. Otherwise you could have just segmented the memory in N parts, collecting 1/N every M seconds, making GC behavior predictable.