docs/glossary: Describe string interning.

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Paul Sokolovsky 2017-12-04 01:01:03 +02:00
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@ -64,6 +64,22 @@ Glossary
properties of these pins (e.g. controllable by the same
register).
interned string
A string referenced by its (unique) identity rather than its
address. Interned strings are thus can be quickly compared just
by their identifiers, instead of comparing by content. The
drawbacks of interned strings are that interning operation takes
time (proportional to the number of existing interned strings,
i.e. becoming slower and slower over time) and that the space
used for interned strings is not reclaimable. String interning
is done automatically by MicroPython compiler and runtimer when
it's either required by the implementation (e.g. function keyword
arguments are represented by interned string id's) or deemed
beneficial (e.g. for short enough strings, which have a chance
to be repeated, and thus interning them would save memory on
copies). Most of string and I/O operations don't produce interned
strings due to drawbacks described above.
MCU
Microcontroller. Microcontrollers usually have much less resources
than a full-fledged computing system, but smaller, cheaper and