Programming Foundations: Memory, Pointers, and Garbage Collection

1h 29mBeginner2022-09-14

Authors

Maaike van Putten

Trainer and Developer for Java, Python, Spring Boot, and More

Course details

Did you know that computers have both short- and long-term memory just like you? It’s true. If you peel back the layers of what it really means to be a programmer, you find that most programming tasks involve moving values around in memory. Many contemporary programming languages hide those mechanics, but as you advance they get harder to avoid.

Join instructor Maaike van Putten to take your foundational skills to the next level, diving in deeper to learn how code really works and exploring the basic tools of memory management. Get tips from Maaike on making code more efficient and fixing it when it breaks, as she walks you through best practices and power skills to improve your overall performance. By the end of this course, you’ll know more about memory management as well as how to avoid and debug common leaks.

Skills covered

Programming FoundationsPythonFoundationsProgramming LanguagesOpen SourceSoftware Development

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Getting started with memory management
02 - Are you ready to learn memory management

1. Memory Management Concepts

03 - What is memory
04 - Why do we need to manage the memory
05 - Stack memory
06 - Heap memory
07 - Heap vs. stack memory
08 - Allocating memory
09 - Deallocating memory
10 - Garbage collection
11 - Actual removing or sweeping

2. Memory Management in Code

12 - The C way - Allocating memory
13 - The C way - Deallocating and reallocating memory
14 - The automagic way in modern languages
15 - Memory management in Python
16 - Memory in Python visualized

3. Memory Leaks and Best Practices

17 - What are memory leaks
18 - Out of Memory error
19 - Avoiding memory leaks
20 - Best practices with memory

Conclusion

21 - Next steps in memory management