🚀 go-pugleaf

I use Microsoft C 6.0 to compile and link my C code. I generally use the
Programmer's Workbench, the interactive shell that comes with the compiler
tools.

Lately I haven't been able to run Workbench because of a lack of memory. The
way I was able to tell that I was running out of memory is because of
experience of the way DOS applications handle running out of memory and the
fact that the application crashed and froze my machine. Entertainment 
software often runs this way also. If you do not have enough memory they
freeze or crash without notification.

My question is why don't applications handle running out of memory in a 
nicer fashion? This may seem like a generalization, but it seems to happen
a lot. I would think that since the programmer allocates the memory via
a malloc or whatever, he/she would know when the memory allocation failed
and be able to recover gracefully. Is this a misconception? Am I thinking
on too small a scale?

As a programmer the last thing I want my application to do is cause a reboot.
My manager seems to think that these certain application I am running were
not written well. I have more faith in my fellow commercial software
programmers to say that memory allocation problems almost certainly would have
been accounted for if it was as easy as I think it is.

Set me straight on DOS memory problems and allocation.

--Les