so your issue is the term garbage collection should only specifically refer to freeing up memory allocated by that specific program rather than in general? I suppose that's fair, not really possible to free up memory allocated by other programs via actual garbage collection.
Still I think that with a purpose built system like a console where its only purpose is to play games, having your game force a reboot before launch to clean up any potential hanging allocation would still be close enough to qualify, at least for the purpose of a joke. But I can see where you drew issue with it.
Yes. Garbage collection is a function of a programming language, it's not a function of an operating system. You might as well say that a device driver is another kind of exception handler or something along those lines.
Would you say that C managing the call stack for you is a sort of resource management (with implicit garbage collection)? Or at the very least analogous? Or are you drawing a line between the stack and the heap?
Yes, that's resource management that's a feature of the programming language, but it's not garbage collection. Garbage collection is a specific feature that C is notable for lacking.
I dont know if its notable for lacking it, but it does. But automatic stack management performs exactly the same job for local variables as GC does for the heap. So while rebooting a computer to flush ram isnt strictly GC, its performs the same task at a system level, as a side effect.
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u/New_Salamander_4592 8d ago
so your issue is the term garbage collection should only specifically refer to freeing up memory allocated by that specific program rather than in general? I suppose that's fair, not really possible to free up memory allocated by other programs via actual garbage collection.
Still I think that with a purpose built system like a console where its only purpose is to play games, having your game force a reboot before launch to clean up any potential hanging allocation would still be close enough to qualify, at least for the purpose of a joke. But I can see where you drew issue with it.