[plt-scheme] Memory / Garbage Collection

> Can someone describe how the garbage collector works?  I saw in the
> documentation that it's "conservative" but I don't know what that
> means
> exactly.  I'm guessing that it doesn't handle structures that "point
> to
> themselves".  I'm developing a genetic programming tool (which
> generates a
> lot of temporary data) and I have a memory leak.  I'm using the
> Windows
> version 202.

The conservative collector determines which potential memory references
must be references.   In some cases, it can't distinguish memory
references from other data.  When it guesses wrong, the actual memory
referred to is never collected. 

-- Paul