Out of memory (not!)

This has got to be the most annoying thing about running Java desktop applications. The dreaded out of memory error.

Large applications like Eclipse require more memory than your usual hello world program. Sun in all of its good intentioned malice has decided for you that your desktop applications will be corralled into a limited amount of memory that is determined at the start.

Your applications don’t gracefully slow down as they start using up swap space - like other non-Java desktop applications. There is no warning. It doesn’t matter if you were working on the cure to cancer and your machine had enough memory to shame an elephant. If your Java application hits the limit rightfully or wrongfully, you will lose your work.

And no, it isn’t good enough for the application to tell me that I should’ve known better and increased the size of the heap. There is plenty of free memory on my computer - it needs to just use it!

If you think about it, the error message is wrong. My computer is not out of memory. Eclipse isn’t out of memory either. It is just out of the horrible horrible limited block of memory that was chosen for it when it started up. 640k ought to be enough for everyone right?