Optimal memory behavior and lifetime is highly application specific, so the behavior of an automatic system likewise will be better for some applications than o

Optimal memory behavior and lifetime is highly application specific, so the behavior of an automatic system likewise will be better for some applications than others. In Java, the goal is to have something that performs reasonably well, without degenerative cases, for a wide variety of applications and services. It also has to handle cases where a monolithic code base results in a multitude of different memory behaviors. Even thinking too hard on the ideal behavior will negatively impact application code. The research field of garbage collectors is a study of trade-offs. A highly tuned, application-specific memory strategy will likely outperform Java, but the goal is to not require anyone to build such a thing for most software.