What's a Memory Allocator Anyway? - Benjamin Feng

Zig SHOWTIME · 89.2K views · 2020-06-29 · 48:30

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Overview

A Zig SHOWTIME talk by Benjamin Feng on what a memory allocator is, followed by an interview. It covers allocation strategies and different allocator types in Zig.

On Hacker News

Recommended as a quick, clear overview of allocators and arenas that also shows how Zig approaches allocation.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2020–2021

Topics

C, C++, Rust, Go & systems languages Software performance & optimization

What people said

kristoff_it · 2021-03 · Recommendation
For an overview of how Zig does this and at the same time a nice overview on different types of allocators: What's a Memory Allocator Anyway? by Benjamin Feng [VIDEO]
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Rendello · 2021-02 · Recommendation
It's interesting that I saw this post minutes after watching the talk "What's a Memory Allocator Anyway?" by Benjamin Feng. It's ostensibly about Zig's allocation schemes, but it's more of a general overview of the varied (single-thread) allocation strategies in use today. It made me really want to try out arena allocators It's a quick watch at 1.5x speed, the last third is an interview. 1. [VIDEO]
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snicker7 · 2020-10 · Recommendation
Would recommend watching the "What's a Memory Allocator, Anyway?" talk from Zig contributor Benjamin Feng: [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Zig SHOWTIME, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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