[joelkevinjones]

Do not use string, index cards, and multiple CS PhD students holding the cards to illustrate how garbage collectors work, particularly if most (all?) of the people in the groups haven't written a garbage collector. Trust me on this.

[joelkevinjones]

Ever watch two kittens get themselves all tangled up while playing with a ball of yarn? Imagine being one of those kittens and getting tangled in string in front of an audience of other CS PhD students and senior CS researchers. In addition to the issue that we really couldn't simulate what GC was doing (or even explain it), imagine trying to untangle yourself while doing it.

To answer the question about why GCs are an issue, a GC scans memory, moving objects, updating pointers, writing marks in special headers, etc.

[Redoubts]

As someone who hasn’t written a GC, why is this?

[daveFNbuck]

As someone who hasn't written a GC, how well do you think you could illustrate how one works in a live presentation?

[ckaygusu]

I think they do not.