[p_l]

For very tight code, like interrupt handler context, you usually avoid allocation at all (with some object caches to provide storage possibly), but yes.

Metronome is all about partitioning run-time into static slice of GC/mutator ensuring that mutator code has predictable performance - it is slower than if mutator was running full-tilt, but it means that unless you manage to horribly exceed GC performance in collection, you're not going to see a pause.

That said, GCs are faster than manual management usually thanks to pauses - if you look at total runtime, wall-clock time, and not latency. The most common algorithms trade latency for throughput and total wall-clock time.

[kragen]

Yeah, that's what I thought about interrupt handlers. (Also if you're allocating in your interrupt handler, your background thread can't allocate without either disabling interrupts or using some kind of lock-free synchronization.)

I still haven't read the Metronome paper.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say GC is usually faster than manual memory management, even if we measure by throughput, but at least "often faster" is justifiable. I think usually you can find a way for manual memory management to be faster.