Re: memory management and productivity

[Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen <ole-hjalmar.kristensen@substitute_employer_here.com>]

Jano <notelacreas@porfavor.no> writes:

> Russ wrote:
> > "Martin Dowie" <martin.dowie@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:<cb0vjl$8hp$1@sparta.btinternet.com>...
> >
> >>"Russ" <18k11tm001@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
> >>news:bebbba07.0406181510.37b8f5e2@posting.google.com...
> >>
> >>>>You will be delighted to here that Ada already supports GC thought the
> >>>>use of Controlled types then. And if that weren't enough you can grap
> >>>>"Boehm-Demers-Weiser" GC from AdaCL @ http://adacl.sourceforge.net/.
> >>>
> >>>I am indeed delighted to hear that. And if Ada really has automatic
> >>>memory management capabilities, more people need to know it.
> >>
> >>Hopefully this thread will breath the life of publicity to this package then
> >>:-)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>However, I am curious about why initialize and finalize are different
> >>>and better than constructors and destructors in C++.
> >>
> >>I never made such a claim.
> > Well, if initialize and finalize are fundamentally no different than
> > constructors and destructors, then I conclude that Ada does not have
> > automated memory management any more than C++ has it. (I may be a bit
> > slow, but I catch on eventually.)
> 
> It's been so many time since I did C++ that I may be wrong, correct me
> in that case.
> 
> IIRC, in C++ you must destroy (delete?) the object to get the
> destructor called. So, even if you have a carefully built chain of
> destructors, if at some point you forget to destroy the root, you're
> leaking.

Yes, *IF* it has been allocated with new.

> 
> In Ada, when an object goes out of scope (assuming it has been created
> in the stack and not with the "new" operator), it's automatically
> finished so you have one less thing to care about.

This is exactly the same as C++.  I would say that Ada and C++ are
more or less on equal footing when it comes to garbage collection in
practice.

-- 
   C++: The power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade.