Weak reference

Okay kiddo, imagine you have a toy that you really like to play with all the time, but sometimes you need to give it to your parents or friends to take care of it. Your parents or friends will still remember that the toy belongs to you and will give it back to you when you want it. This is like a strong reference.

But sometimes, you have toys that you don't really need all the time, but you might want to play with them later. So you tell your parents or friends that they can keep the toy, but if you want to play with it again, they can give it back to you. But if you forget about it or don't want it anymore, then it's okay for them to get rid of it. This is like a weak reference.

In computer programming, we use weak references to create a connection between two objects. One object is the main object that we want to use, and the other object is something that we might not need all the time, but we still want a connection to it. If we use a strong reference, then the second object will always stay in memory, even if we don't need it anymore. But with a weak reference, the computer knows that it's okay to get rid of the second object if we don't need it anymore.

So, weak references help us save memory because we only keep the objects that we really need. Just like with your toys, we only keep the things we play with all the time, and the ones we don't play with can be given away.