garbage collector

Definitions

1. An automatic memory management system that identifies and reclaims memory occupied by objects that are no longer referenced by a program. Garbage collection frees developers from manual memory management but introduces unpredictable pauses (GC pauses) that can cause latency spikes. Java, Go, Python, and JavaScript all use garbage collectors; Rust and C do not.

   In plain English: An automatic system that cleans up unused memory so programmers don't have to do it manually — convenient, but it occasionally pauses your program to do housekeeping.

   Example: The GC pause hit 200ms during a full collection cycle, causing the game to stutter — they ended up switching to an incremental collector.

Related Terms

• Garbage Collection
• Swap
• heap
• Managed Language
• Pass by Reference
• Pass by Value
• Plugin System
• Reference
• ROM
• Shallow Copy
• Stop the World
• Class Loader