[pwk]

The language (interpreter ? VM? ) leaks memory?

AFAIK the interpreter has no intrinsic leaks, but many ruby applications keep objects referenced beyond their intended life, preventing GC.

Edit: You extended your edit after I started responding :->

perhaps by holding onto objects and not letting the GC collect them

Yup, that's my understanding.

[mojombo]

MRI has had a variety of memory leaks. I did an extensive search for the memory leaks on god, which you can read about here: http://groups.google.com/group/god-rb/browse_thread/thread/0.... I've verified that it's not an object referencing issue (which you can also read about in that link). Something in the threading code of MRI appears to be at fault, but I haven't had time to track that down yet.

[plinkplonk]

Tom , I just saw your comment on the post. I stand corrected. It seems the Ruby interpreter does leak memory!

[pwk]

Interesting, thanks for the pointer.

[plinkplonk]

"AFAIK the interpreter has no intrinsic leaks, "

ok if what you say is true then Brad's blog post is just wrong isn't it?. Either he is right or you are.

Holding onto objects sounds like something user code does so "ruby leaks" is (or should be) not correct usage I think.

I use python I don't use Ruby, but "Python leaks", as a claim, is different from "my program written in python leaks memory".

the blog post seems to imply it is Ruby's fault. At least it reads that way ("Ruby leaks") hence my confusion. Thanks for the clarification

EDIT: I stand corrected. It seems like Tom is right and the ruby interpreter leaks memory! Incredible!