I finally got a chance to sit down and talk to Patrick Dussud, one of the CLR founders and chief architect of the .NET Garbage Collector, or GC, as developers call it. I wanted to learn about what a GC is, how it works, why it does what it does, how it will evolve, Patrick's history in the industry, and, of course, get some Niner GC questions answered by the master of GC himself. I'd say all of this was accomplished and then some.
Patrick is a Distinguised Engineer and has been working on automatic object lifetime management systems for many years (that's one way to think about a GC - automatic object lifetime manager). Ever wonder what happens to running .NET code when a garbage collection occurs? Why did Patrick decide to allow programmers to invoke a garbage collection programmatically? How does the GC accurately keep track of all objects lifetime states and determine what lives and what dies when it's time to pick up the garbage?
If you're curious about the history of the CLR's GC, how it works, why it's designed the way it is, how it will evolve and want to meet the man behind it all, well, this interview is for you! Sit back, relax, grab some popcorn and learn.