[Tutor] Memory Management etc

[Alan Gauld]

> realised that Python doesn't release memory back to the OS - someone 
> else

That's not at all unusual. In fact in most Unices no program ever 
releases
memory to the OS - one reason you should be very careful when writing
daemon processes! One advantage of this approach is that it speeds up
memory allocation when the memory needs to be reused by the 
application
since its already there waiting to be used. It also acts as a 
resilience
feature by ensuring that running programs don;t get all their memory
stolen by some new startup app that grabs all thats available. The
reasoning being that its better to have a program crash early than 
late...

Alan G