Overhead of individual python apps

[Peter Hansen]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> (for python, the "private" memory use is usually ~1.5 megabytes for a "empty" 2.4
> process, and some of that will only occupy space in the paging file...  for firefox with
> a simple page loaded into a single tab, the private space is ~10 megabytes)

I believe a relatively simple, if crude, way of measuring this sort of 
thing (at least for console programs) is to open a handful of command 
prompts, check the Physical Memory Available measurement in the Task 
Manager, and then load one instance of the program in each console, 
checking the drop in physical memory available at each step.  After 
three or four instances are loaded, the approximate real memory usage 
for each should be readily apparent.

Obviously there are a dozen issues that can screw with this, including 
having too little memory free at all, and having other programs open 
which are very actively allocating or freeing memory.

It does seem to back up the "~1.5MB" number above, and certainly shows 
that the total is nowhere near 4MB per Python interpreter.

-Peter