A New Garbage Collector

As we saw earlier in the chapter, Java 7 includes a new garbage collector, called G1. G1 is a concurrent garbage collector, meaning that it uses multiple processors (if available) at the same time. Also, as we read earlier in the chapter, the G1 collector's “garbage first” algorithm offers better performance than other collectors, regardless of the number of processors. For a computer with just one processor (or a shared computer that makes only one processor available to the JVM), G1 should offer some improvement over any other garbage collector (though the nature of the application may limit the improvement). If G1 can get access to at least two processors, the improvement in performance should be even better. Given that most modern comp....