Go GC is incremental, concurrent, parallel, but it's not generational and not compacting. However, the way Go uses the memory internally is different from JavaScript, Java, C#, etc. Go data structures rely on pointers a lot less, and thus the process of inspecting the heap during garbage collection takes a lot less time, too. Many short-lived objects in Go remain on stack only, and do not need to be garbage-collected. So, their GC doesn't need to be as sophisticated as the ones in JVM, for example.
Also all modern Java implementations do escape analysis just like Go, instead of go build -gcflags='-m=3' one gets to use JITWatch or similar tooling, depending on the specific JVM implementation.
Given it still isn't as good as having explicit structs, hence the ongoing Valhala Project, that just got a second EA last week.
Finally, all this Go doesn't need to be like XYZ, usually ends up proven wrong a few years later.
Recently by adopting the keep alive and cleaner concepts from .NET and Java respectively, and a new GC implementation is in the works (Green Tea).
ape4•3mo ago
i80and•3mo ago