https://nalar.dev/tags/runtime-semantics/ Recent content in Runtime Semantics on Nalar Hugo en-us Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0700 https://nalar.dev/garbage-collection-does-not-close-external-resources/ Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0700 https://nalar.dev/garbage-collection-does-not-close-external-resources/ <p>An object can become unreachable while a file descriptor, socket, database transaction, or operating-system lock associated with it still has a meaningful external lifetime. Garbage collection can reclaim managed memory after reachability disappears. It does not, by that fact alone, perform the protocol operation that releases an external resource.</p> <p>The distinction is structural. A collector reasons about references inside a managed heap. A resource such as a file descriptor is an entry maintained by the operating system, and a database transaction is state maintained by another component. Their release semantics come from APIs and protocols outside the collector&rsquo;s reachability model.</p>