Computing

Rewriting code you’ve already written for another project can be frustrating. That’s why saving and documenting code snippets matters. What’s a code snippet? A code snippet is a small, reusable piece of code – anything from a simple function to a short command sequence. It could be: A function with specific arguments to handle a specific task A command line that automates several steps A few lines that generate a specific plot In that last case, next time you want to create a similar plot, you just grab your snippet, tweak the colors, rename the data, and run it. Easy. ...

I was familiar with the concept of SWAP in memory management until recently when I became familiar with the concept of “RAM disk”. In this blog post, I introduce both briefly. In computing, memory management is critical to ensuring smooth performance and efficiency, especially as applications become more demanding. Two strategies, SWAP and RAM disk, help manage memory resources, albeit in very different ways. What is SWAP? SWAP, also known as swap space or swap memory, is a dedicated portion of disk storage set aside to act as an extension of a system’s physical memory (RAM). When a computer’s RAM is nearly full, the operating system can transfer some data from RAM to the SWAP area to avoid performance bottlenecks when RAM is under pressure. When the RAM cannot accommodate many programs and heavy applications, less active data is moved from the RAM to the SWAP space on the hard drive or SSD. This allows the system to continue running without immediate slowdowns. If that data is needed again, it’s “swapped in”, returning to RAM while another, less-needed piece of data may be swapped out. It should be noted that SWAP is considerably slower than RAM. ...