Memory Management & Garbage Collection
What is 'memory thrashing' in the context of JavaScript performance?
Memory thrashing in JavaScript refers to excessive garbage collection: 1) It occurs when applications frequently create and dispose of objects at a high rate, 2) This triggers garbage collection cycles too often, causing performance degradation, 3) The constant allocation and deallocation creates overhead and interrupts normal execution, 4) The CPU spends too much time managing memory instead of executing application code, 5) It typically manifests as stuttering or inconsistent performance, 6) Common causes include creating many temporary objects in tight loops or frequently regenerating large data structures, 7) Solutions involve object pooling, reusing existing objects, or redesigning algorithms to reduce allocation frequency, 8) This is a particularly important consideration in performance-critical code like animations, games, or data processing.