Memory usage in managed runtime applications

A computing system, comprising:

• one or more processing units;
• and
• one or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processing units to:
• identify an object stored in volatile memory of the one or more computer-readable storage media and reachable from an application executing on the computing system;
• compress the object to create a compressed object, to compress the object to be performed in response to:
• determining that a size of the object is larger than a threshold size;
• and
• determining that the object has not been recently accessed;
• store the compressed object in a heap memory in a region of the volatile memory that stores compressed objects intermingled with uncompressed objects;
• and
• compact at least a portion of the heap memory in response to compressing the object.

One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions for causing a computing system to:

• identify an object located in volatile memory of the one or more computer-readable storage media and reachable from an application executing on the computing system, wherein the object comprises one or more reference fields and one or more value fields;
• split the object into a first sub-object comprising the one or more value fields and a second sub-object comprising the one or more reference fields;
• compress the object to create a compressed object, wherein to compress the object comprises to compress the first sub-object and to not compress the second sub-object and to compress the object to be performed in response to:
• determining that a size of the object is larger than a threshold size;
• and
• determining that the object has not been recently accessed;
• and
• store the compressed object in a region of the volatile memory that stores compressed objects intermingled with uncompressed objects.