Re: memory management in Ada: tedious without GC?

[Brian Drummond <brian_drummond@btconnect.com>]

On Fri, 16 May 2008 10:44:11 -0700 (PDT), "jhc0033@gmail.com"
<jhc0033@gmail.com> wrote:

>I'm mostly soliciting answers from Ada programmers who know C++ RAII
>well (Skip this if you use the words "C" and "C++" interchangeably,
>please. Your answers will be misleading at best):

Thank you for mentioning RAII. Not associating the acronym with the
concept, this prompted me to read about it, and from there to auto_ptr.

Which explained to me how changing from ptr to auto_ptr (presumably to
make code safer!) can introduce a spectacularly silly bug, completely
statically determinable, but which the compiler allows just fine and
lets the code die with a segfault.

One thing is clear to me: if you attempt to replicate C++ paradigms (as
opposed to OOP paradigms) in Ada, you will probably find Ada difficult.
But if you appreciate that about half the patterns in the "Gang of Four"
book only exist because of defects in C++, you will probably have an
easier time of it.

And no, I clearly do not consider myself a C++ programmer, but I
sometimes have to update something left behind by someone who did.

- Brian