That is temporary and evictable kernel memory usage. It also isn’t allocating more memory than it has while doing it, it evicts things when it runs out of unallocated memory.
Technically a program, but not what I think anyone typically considers one in this context?
What other ones are you aware of?
I ask because generally programs use RAM because it’s fast - otherwise they’d use something else. Having a program intentionally allocate more than is available would almost certainly result in serious performance issues it would have a hard time dealing with predictably - as compared to using disk for the ‘excess’, and then reading/loading what it needs.
Well simply put any allocation that's not really needed any time soon but is also not freed. Swap let's you use that.
In terms of what benefits from that most modern programs are actually surprisingly flexible in memory allocation. Anything with a garbage collection behind the scenes will flush more often if needed. Having swap to push the non needed programs out let's GC based programs keep allocations longer which is intended to enable reuse
Technically a program, but not what I think anyone typically considers one in this context?
What other ones are you aware of?
I ask because generally programs use RAM because it’s fast - otherwise they’d use something else. Having a program intentionally allocate more than is available would almost certainly result in serious performance issues it would have a hard time dealing with predictably - as compared to using disk for the ‘excess’, and then reading/loading what it needs.