In the Before Times, the vast majority of software was written in garbage collected language where a working knowledge of the relative merits of C memory allocators is not useful or particularly relevant.
Why would the scads of people writing JavaScript, Java, python, go, rails, etc need to be aware of jemalloc?
TL;DR: Because the runtime of most GC:d languages uses malloc for its internal data structures.
I work for the runtime team of JPG @ Oracle. We use malloc in Hotspot, quite a lot actually! Providing your JVM with a good malloc can improve the performance of the runtime, both in terms of CPU and memory, by quite a bit.
I don't think you need the details, but it's good to be aware that some mallocs are better than others, and there are multiple of them. Being aware of jemalloc is a good way of being aware of the facts I just mentioned :-).
The vast majority of professional developers are not in a position where they can just swap out allocators willy-nilly. They take what they get, and write the code they're assigned to write on the platform the CTO or their product lead or whoever has decided upon.
Okay, well, I guess all I can say is that if you strive to be one of the developers who do get the chance to care about this stuff, then you should know this stuff :-).
ZenoArrow · · focus · HN ↗
baq · · focus · HN ↗
stackghost · · focus · HN ↗
Why would the scads of people writing JavaScript, Java, python, go, rails, etc need to be aware of jemalloc?
iam-da-author · · focus · HN ↗
I work for the runtime team of JPG @ Oracle. We use malloc in Hotspot, quite a lot actually! Providing your JVM with a good malloc can improve the performance of the runtime, both in terms of CPU and memory, by quite a bit.
I don't think you need the details, but it's good to be aware that some mallocs are better than others, and there are multiple of them. Being aware of jemalloc is a good way of being aware of the facts I just mentioned :-).
stackghost · · focus · HN ↗
iam-da-author · · focus · HN ↗