alt Hacker Newshow is that different from compiling against a traditional CPU which also doesn't have a built in GC? i mean those programs that need a GC already have one. so what is the benefit of including one on the "CPU"?
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aag • yesterday at 6:49 PM
The "CPU" in every browser already has one. This lets garbage-collected languages use that one. That's an enormous savings in code size and development effort.
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The fact that a minimum size go program is a few megabytes in size is acceptable in most places in 2025. If it was shipped over the wire for every run time instead of a single install time download, that would be a different story.
Garbage collection is a small part of the go run time, but it's not insignificant.