Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!goldman
From: goldman@Apple.COM (Phil Goldman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Why does the system heap grow with multifinder and System 4
Message-ID: <16436@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 1 Sep 88 18:15:37 GMT
References: <12422786824.175.G.GUTOW@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU> <8585@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: goldman@apple.com.UUCP (Phil Goldman)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 16

In article <8585@cup.portal.com> LaserMan@cup.portal.com writes:
>The *feature* you describe, not releasing memory when applications are quit
>in Multifinder is documented in the MultiFinder release documentation. I have
>always considered this to be a bug. It is know in most circles as a
>'Core leak' and is definitily bad practice. But since it is documented it must
>be a feature...SMILE.

The point is, many of these resources could be used by the applications that
are still running.  Therefore, it is a waste of time to throw them out until
there is no other space left, as they will just have to be loaded from the
disk again.  Probably the mistake that was made was to show the "System"
memory bar in the Finder about box, or else we should not have included
resources that could be reclaimed in this category.

-Phil Goldman
Apple Computer