Comment by const_cast
18 days ago
Modern computers have so much memory it feels like it doesn't matter. Spending that memory on arrays for algorithms or things like a Garbage Collector just make sense. And, extra memory is worthless. You WANT the summation of all your programs to use all your memory. The processor, on the other hand, can context switch and do everything in it's power to make sure it stays busy.
The CPU is like an engine and memory is your gas tank. Idling the engine is bad, but leaving gas in the tank doesn't hurt, but it doesn't help either. I'm not gonna get to my destination faster because I have a full tank.
Only if running one such memory-hungry program at a time, which usually cannot be afforded. Multi-program workloads are much more common and the strategy of using as much ram as possible can't work in that environment.