Memory Leaks
Memory leaks are a type of resource management issue in software development where a program fails to release memory that is no longer needed, causing a gradual increase in memory usage over time. This can lead to performance degradation, system instability, or crashes as available memory is exhausted. They are particularly common in languages with manual memory management, like C or C++, but can also occur in garbage-collected languages due to unintended object references.
Developers should learn about memory leaks to build efficient, reliable applications, especially in resource-constrained environments like embedded systems or long-running servers. Understanding and detecting memory leaks is crucial for debugging performance issues, preventing crashes, and optimizing memory usage in applications where manual memory management is involved or in garbage-collected languages with reference cycles.