Epsilon doesn't GC at all?

I think it was a tongue in cheek reply, as it is indeed a no-code, no-pause, no-compute power GC that does eventually reclaim the garbage (at process exit).

Correct me if I am wrong but does it really GC at all if you receive an OutOfMemoryError?

It’s meant for short lived apps where you simply wouldn’t get OOM either way. I don’t know about an objective definition for what a GC is, one I quite like is “gives the illusion of infinite memory”, based on that it isn’t a GC.

But there are also conservative GCs, RCs, etc, that fail different definitions also (leaving behind circular dependencies, having false positives, in reverse order), like in case of many things in CS, there isn’t an objective definition.

Thank you for the explanation, I think I get it now!