I just use a (Ruby) array of strings for mine, on the basis that I have never on purpose wanted to actually edit a file large enough that this is a problem. Com

I just use a (Ruby) array of strings for mine, on the basis that I have never on purpose wanted to actually edit a file large enough that this is a problem. Computers keeps getting faster, but files I want to edit really don't. If I open a huge one it's usually either an accident or because I want to view it, not edit it. It's easy enough to support abnormally large files, but it felt to me like a distraction that adds complexity for the sake of a fringe case I was perfectly happy to just define as out of scope. Incidentally, the server process for my editor holds every buffer that I've ever opened (over several years) and not explicitly killed in memory, and it's consuming too little for me to bother adding any garbage collection for buffers or similar (it's synced to disk, so on reboot I have the full same set of buffers available). We're talking many hundred buffers. RAM is cheap and plentiful.