Imagesource: https://samwho.dev/

And even though only really practical projects should find their place in this special edition, there was a learning piece in June that simply had to make it into this annual review. Rarely is material like this so well prepared and explained.

Solving complex problems with the help of high-level languages can be a fun affair. It's something you're probably familiar with, otherwise you wouldn't be reading these lines right now. But what about the fundamentals underneath?

Perhaps you've worked your way through Don Knuth's TOACP and simply skipped the memory management chapter. Maybe you were sleeping in the university at that time. Or perhaps memory management was already considered a solved problem when you first sat in front of a machine with computing capabilities.

All of this is very likely, but it doesn't matter. Because the topic – as dry as it may initially sound – is incredibly demanding and interesting. And anyone who has done more than just a few attempts at low-level assembly has certainly come across the actual problem.

But how do you solve it? What are the subclasses of the problem? Who am I? And if so, how many? 🤪

But back to the point: Sam Rose, aka @samwhoo, has not only revisited the topic but also completely refreshed it. His wonderfully readable article is brilliantly interactive, so you get a dynamic graphical representation of your Memory Consumption while reading.

Even if you don't plan to implement malloc and mfree yourself anytime soon, Sam's article is highly recommended. It's a marvel.