A method for controlling disposition of a candidate object in an object-oriented programming environment is disclosed. The method may include the step of determining the number of cyclic paths that include the candidate object in the object-oriented programming environment. The method may also include the step of determining a number of internal references to the candidate object. The internal references are references from other objects in the object-oriented programming environment. The method may control the disposition of the candidate object on the basis of a predetermined relationship between the number of the internal references and the number of the cyclic paths.