title: What's the relationship between "a" heap and "the" heap?
body: <p>A heap is a tree data structure where higher levels of the tree always contain greater (or lesser, if it's set up that way) values than lower levels.  "The" heap is a bunch of free RAM that a program has available for dynamic allocation.  They're both called "heap," but what does the one have to do with the other?</p>