Conclusion

In this tutorial we covered the core concepts of memory management in JavaScript:

• The heap is where memory is allocated to objects and data structures. It has a limited amount of memory.

• Garbage collection automatically frees up memory on the heap that is no longer accessible by the program. This prevents memory leaks.

• Strategies like reference counting and mark-and-sweep are used to determine when to garbage collect objects.

• Best practices like avoiding unwanted references and reusing objects help optimize memory usage.

Understanding these concepts is beneficial for several reasons:

• Avoid memory leaks by properly handling object references
• Write performant code by reducing memory footprint
• Build applications that can handle heavy workloads without crashing