On models for object lifetime distributions
Darko Stefanović, Kathryn S. McKinley, J. Eliot B. Moss · 2000
Analytical models of memory object lifetimes are appealing because having them would enable mathematical analysis or fast simulation of the memory management behavior of programs. In this paper, we investigate models for object lifetimes drawn from programs in object-oriented languages such as Java and Smalltalk. We present certain postulated analytical models and compare them with observed lifetimes for 58 programs. We find that observed lifetime distributions do not match previously proposed object lifetime models, but do agree in salient shape characteristics with the gamma distribution family used in statistical survival analysis for general populations.