For example somebody using IMNHO broken languages such as standard
Pascal that doesn't support dynamic memory allocation. One has to
compile the program with "enough" preallocated for any reasonable
purpose, even if only a fraction of it will be used.
For example, TeX is one such application, it really ought to allocate
memory dynamically when needed, but since it's written in standard
Pascal it can't do this:
(constants from an old version of the TeX source)
mem_max = 30000; { greatest index in TeX's internal mem array }
font_mem_size = 20000; { number of words of font-info for all fonts }
So it's really useful to be able to set mem_max to something really
large, so that no normal TeX document will reach this limit, and at
the same time know that since memory is allocated only when
referenced, this won't make the system crawl.
/Christer
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