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6038

Interactive Programming in C

I’m a huge fan of interactive programming (see: JavaScript , Java , Lisp , Clojure ). That is, modifying and extending a program while it’s running. For certain kinds of non-batch applications, it takes much of the tedium out of testing and tweaking during development. Until last week I didn’t know how to apply…

6040

PHP 7's new hashtable implementation

About three years ago I wrote an article analyzing the memory usage of arrays in PHP 5. As part of the work on the upcoming PHP 7, large parts of the Zend Engine have been rewritten with a focus on smaller data structures requiring fewer allocations. In this article I will provide an overview of the new hashtable…

6046

Effectively Managing Memory at Gmail Scale

While JavaScript employs garbage collection for automatic memory management, it is not a substitute for effective memory management in applications. JavaScript applications suffer from the same memory related problems that native applications do, such as memory leaks and bloat, yet they must also deal with garbage…