Memory leaks in front-end JavaScript

Submitted Apr 23, 2020

JavaScript ecosystem has exploded in a short span of time. Libraries has made it so much easier for developers to scaffold a whole web app and extend their app on top of it. JavaScript’s dynamic nature has also given developers a lot of leeway to not care about memory leaks and quickly build a scalable app. But is the app really scalable if it has multiple leaks spread across the codebase? Should we even care about it? How efficient is JavaScript’s automatic memory management? What should we avoid to create a memory leak and most importantly how do we catch a leak?

This talk answers all these questions and will be a good takeaway of what to and not to do for beginners learning JavaScript as well as advanced who are writing their own JavaScript library.

Outline

In this talk, I’ll be explaining

What exacatly are memory leaks
How JavaScript handles memory leaks
Ways in which you can create a memory leak in your web app
How to catch memory leak
Live demo of a web app with and without memory leak

Speaker bio

Varun Dey is a front-end developer writing production JavaScript since last three years. He is currently working with Grofers as part of their supply chain engineering team. Previously he has worked with Symantec as part of its Browser Protection team and helped build products which served millions of their customer. Has given multiple talks at local meetups as well as conferences. Loves dogs, football, reading and all things web.

Slides

https://varundey.me/talk/Chennai JS Sep’19

JSFoo Delhi 2020