Generational Z Garbage Collector would lower garbage collection CPU overhead, lower heap memory overhead, and reduce the risk of allocations stalls, OpenJDK proposal says. Credit: Gregory Hayes A proposal floating in the Java community would improve application performance by extending the ZGC (Z Garbage Collector) to maintain separate generations for young and old objects. This would allow ZGC to more frequently collect young objects, which tend to die young, Java’s developers said. Specific goals of the OpenJDK Java Enhancement Proposal (JEP) for generational ZGC include lower risks of allocation stalls, lower required heap memory overhead, and lower garbage collection CPU overhead. These benefits should come without significant throughput reduction compared to non-generational ZGC, the proposal states. Designed for scalability and low latency, ZGC has been available as a production release since Java Development Kit (JDK) 15 in September 2020. With ZGC, most work is done with application threads running. Pause times for ZGC consistently are measured in microseconds, whereas pause times for the default G1 collector range from milliseconds to seconds. Thus, for many workloads, ZGC can solve latency problems related to garbage collection, the proposal states. ZGC works well when there are sufficient resources. But because ZGC stores all objects together, regardless of age, it must collect all objects every time it runs. Because young objects tend to die young, while older objects tend to stay around (per the weak generational hypothesis), collecting young objects requires fewer resources and yields more memory while collecting old objects takes more resources and yields less memory. Generational ZGC is currently not designated for any specific version of standard Java. The current release, JDK 20, arrived a week ago while the next release, JDK 21, is due in September. Standard Java is on a six-month release cadence. Related content analysis Beyond the usual suspects: 5 fresh data science tools to try today The mid-month report includes quick tips for easier Python installation, a new VS Code-like IDE just for Python and R users, and five newer data science tools you won't want to miss. By Serdar Yegulalp Jul 12, 2024 2 mins Python Programming Languages Software Development analysis Generative AI won’t fix cloud migration You’ve probably heard how generative AI will solve all cloud migration problems. It’s not that simple. Generative AI could actually make it harder and more costly. By David Linthicum Jul 12, 2024 5 mins Generative AI Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing news HR professionals trust AI recommendations HireVue survey finds 73% of HR professionals trust AI to make candidate recommendations, while 75% of workers are opposed to AI making hiring decisions. By Paul Krill Jul 11, 2024 3 mins Technology Industry Careers how-to Safety off: Programming in Rust with `unsafe` What does it mean to write unsafe code in Rust, and what can you do (and not do) with the 'unsafe' keyword? The facts may surprise you. By Serdar Yegulalp Jul 11, 2024 8 mins Rust Programming Languages Software Development Resources Videos