1 files changed, 34 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/Modules/gcmodule.c b/Modules/gcmodule.c
index 64afe831c8..b11ae842e2 100644
--- a/Modules/gcmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/gcmodule.c
@@ -1381,8 +1381,40 @@ collect_generations(PyThreadState *tstate)
     for (int i = NUM_GENERATIONS-1; i >= 0; i--) {
         if (gcstate->generations[i].count > gcstate->generations[i].threshold) {
             /* Avoid quadratic performance degradation in number
-               of tracked objects. See comments at the beginning
-               of this file, and issue #4074.
+               of tracked objects (see also issue #4074):
+
+               To limit the cost of garbage collection, there are two strategies;
+                 - make each collection faster, e.g. by scanning fewer objects
+                 - do less collections
+               This heuristic is about the latter strategy.
+
+               In addition to the various configurable thresholds, we only trigger a
+               full collection if the ratio
+
+                long_lived_pending / long_lived_total
+
+               is above a given value (hardwired to 25%).
+
+               The reason is that, while "non-full" collections (i.e., collections of
+               the young and middle generations) will always examine roughly the same
+               number of objects -- determined by the aforementioned thresholds --,
+               the cost of a full collection is proportional to the total number of
+               long-lived objects, which is virtually unbounded.
+
+               Indeed, it has been remarked that doing a full collection every
+               <constant number> of object creations entails a dramatic performance
+               degradation in workloads which consist in creating and storing lots of
+               long-lived objects (e.g. building a large list of GC-tracked objects would
+               show quadratic performance, instead of linear as expected: see issue #4074).
+
+               Using the above ratio, instead, yields amortized linear performance in
+               the total number of objects (the effect of which can be summarized
+               thusly: "each full garbage collection is more and more costly as the
+               number of objects grows, but we do fewer and fewer of them").
+
+               This heuristic was suggested by Martin von Löwis on python-dev in
+               June 2008. His original analysis and proposal can be found at:
+               http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2008-June/080579.html
             */
             if (i == NUM_GENERATIONS - 1
                 && gcstate->long_lived_pending < gcstate->long_lived_total / 4)