[richieartoul]

It’s really the usage of the word primitive that I’m arguing with. Java’s GC comes with a lot of additional trade offs that Go’s doesn’t.

For example, the fact that the Java GC is copying and generational means that there is a LOT more overhead introduced by write barriers.

If you benchmark the rate at which the GCs can clean up garbage, Java always wins, but the Java GC impairs you a lot more in other situations that the Go one doesn’t.

It’s trade offs, but the Go one makes much better trade offs for modern hardware IMO.

[kaba0]

Write barriers are a single local conditional on the fast path, if I’m not mistaken. Also, since a JIT compiler is in action, it may have a much wider range than every object interaction. It’s basically free on modern computers with branch prediction.

ZGC (the low-lat GC) does employ read barriers though which will decrease throughput considerably, but latency and throughput are almost universally opposites of each other.