Knowing Your Garbage Collector

Explore the intricacies of Python's garbage collection mechanisms in this 40-minute EuroPython Conference talk. Delve into the automatic memory management that allows Python programmers to code without manually allocating and freeing memory. Gain a deeper understanding of the underlying interpreter and learn why issues like cycles can occur in CPython interpreters. Examine different approaches to garbage collection, including the Generational Reference counting with cycles detector used in CPython and the Incremental version of the MiniMark GC employed by PyPy. Discover the history, definition, and tradeoffs of garbage collection techniques. Investigate memory leaks, cycle detection, and implementation details through examples and demonstrations. Analyze potential problems and explore incremental approaches to garbage collection. Enhance your knowledge of Python's memory model and improve your programming practices by understanding the inner workings of this crucial language feature.