When I set a variable to a new object, does the old value die?

Question

Assume I have a variable, which is a List(Of T), with 100 elements that are instances of a class....

If I set this variable to a new List(Of T) with another 100 instances, the old ones totally disappear, right? They...die. Absolutely thing of the past, right?

Answer 1

Assuming nothing else points to those 100 things, then yes, they are eligible for garbage collection.