Re: ideas for returning memory to the OS

Jonas Sicking wrote:
> So ideally I would like to have one arena per "window" (see below for
> definition of window). We should try to stick as many objects that have
> lifetimes similar to the window into that arena. This includes things
> such as DOM nodes, JS objects, layout frames, style structs, etc etc.
> Once the window goes away we'll in most cases delete all objects in the
> arena, and the arena can go away.

What would this mean for other applications that are based on xul, like 
thunderbird and sunbird? Those usually have one window that exists for 
the lifetime of the app. I know that for sunbird, a lot of xul nodes are 
created and destroyed for displaying calendar data. Would the memory 
from those nodes never be released anymore (afaik, you can't release 
individual arena allocations, only the entire arena. Is that right?)

Related to this: what about tabs that stay open a long time, but do 
change? for example, webmail. I keep that open all day, but it reloads 
all day. Would that also mean the memory won't be released?


Michiel