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Does memory leak? (1995)

groups.google.com Essays & writing Forum discussions Software engineering Candidate

Resurfaced independently across 3 calendar years, with breakout response in 2 of them.

submissions
3
submitters
3
observed span
2017–2020
peak thread · 279 comments
503 pts
latest 20+ return · 2020-02-22
503 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

Erlang has a parameter called initial_heap_size. Each new actor-process in Erlang gets its own isolated heap, for which it does its own garbage-collection on its own execution thread. This initial_heap_size parameter determines how large each newly-spawned actor’s heap will be. Why would you tune it? Because, if you set it high enough, then for all your short-lived actors, memory allocation will become a no-op (= bump allocation), and the actor will never experience enough memory-pressure to trigger a…

derefr·503-point thread·

This reminds me of a demo a friend once gave me on a Symbolics Lisp Machine. He turned the garbage collector off, then ran a program that allocated memory like mad. After a while, a message popped up saying something like "you are about to run out of memory. Activate GC?" He declined, and the program continued running. After a bit more time, another message popped up saying "you are about to run out of memory, and if you don't…

aag·144-point thread·

The previous discussion is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14233542

tjalfi·91-point thread·

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
2

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
738

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
357

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2017-04-30The Ultimate in Garbage Collection (1995)First breakouttjalfi14445
2018-02-28Intentional memory leaksthrowaway20489133
2020-02-22Does memory leak? (1995)Best thread · Latest 20+ point returnrot25503279