What every programmer should know about memory, Part 1

[Editor’s introduction: Ulrich Drepper recently approached us asking if we would be interested in publishing a lengthy document he had written on how memory and software interact. We did not have to look at the text for long to realize that it would be of interest to many LWN readers. Memory usage is often the determining factor in how software performs, but good information on how to avoid memory bottlenecks is hard to find. This series of articles should change that situation.

The original document prints out at over 100 pages. We will be splitting it into about seven segments, each run 1-2 weeks after its predecessor. Once the entire series is out, Ulrich will be releasing the full text.

Reformatting the text from the original LaTeX has been a bit of a challenge, but the results, hopefully, will be good. For ease of online reading, Ulrich’s footnotes have been placed {inline in the text}. Hyperlinked cross-references (and [bibliography references]) will not be possible until the full series is published.

Many thanks to Ulrich for allowing LWN to publish this material; we hope that it will lead to more memory-efficient software across our systems in the near future.]

This thread was posted by one of our members via one of our news source trackers.