The Garbage Collection Handbook
The Garbage Collection Handbook by Jones, Hosking and Mossby Jones, Richard
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 7 computer science books
Recommended as a thorough, authoritative guide to garbage collection, especially real-time algorithms. Critics object to the ebook's price and format.
Recommended as a thorough, authoritative guide to garbage collection, especially real-time algorithms. Critics object to the ebook's price and format.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 76%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Authoritative, best-regarded book on GC
“One of the best books available - the best book that I knew - about GC at that time.”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management (2nd Ed)” “one of the world's foremost experts on memory management”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management (2nd Ed)” “The best book about garbage collection at the time”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management (2nd Ed)” - Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “A 40ms Go garbage collector pause caused by swap”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Ebook price and format objections
“I'd never buy that, no matter how much I wanted to read the content.”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management (2nd Ed)” “How on earth is the ebook more expensive than the physical copy!”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management (2nd Ed)” “And it's not an actual ebook.”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management (2nd Ed)”
Other computer science books people recommend
The four most recommended other computer science books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Garbage Collection Handbookby Jones, RichardThis page | 16 | 5 | 76% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Scienceby Brian Hall | 15 | 2 | 88% | 1 | — | — |
| Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Softwareby Charles Petzold | 12 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | Approved |
| The Unix-Haters Handbookby Simson Garfinkel | 8 | 1 | 89% | 4 | — | — |
| Codeby Charles Petzold | 7 | 1 | 88% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“One of the authoritative books on the subject”
“one of the world's foremost experts on memory management”
“I'd never buy that, no matter how much I wanted to read the content.”
“And it's not an actual ebook.”
“I have this book and like it.”
“How on earth is the ebook more expensive than the physical copy!”
“The best book about garbage collection at the time”
“One of the best books available - the best book that I knew - about GC at that time.”
“choosing “garbage collection” as umbrella term for both tracing GC and reference counting”
“This is a truly remarkable book, and a must read for any engineer who depends on a gc”
“The explanations on various real-time gc algorithms are very thorough though.”
“having a more in depth knowledge of garbage collection”
“it is very well written and thorough”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.