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  3. This is why I am starting to loathe programming

This is why I am starting to loathe programming

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  • L leppie

    It's like the blind leading the blind.... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2926869/c-do-you-need-to-dispose-of-objects-and-set-them-to-null/2926877#2926877[^] I think I will get similar responses from here too though :sigh:

    xacc.ide
    IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
    ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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    Daniel Grunwald
    wrote on last edited by
    #6

    It's a bad idea to not dispose IDisposable objects. But the reasons given there are incorrect, it does not lead to memory leaks. But it does lead to excessive resource usage and potentially even to resource exhaustion (where resource != memory). Yeah and I don't visit StackOverflow anymore for this reason - popular myths get upvoted, correct answers usually get ignored.

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    • L leppie

      It's like the blind leading the blind.... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2926869/c-do-you-need-to-dispose-of-objects-and-set-them-to-null/2926877#2926877[^] I think I will get similar responses from here too though :sigh:

      xacc.ide
      IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
      ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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      Brady Kelly
      wrote on last edited by
      #7

      I think I can avoid a downvote or two, on my way now. :cool:

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      • D Daniel Grunwald

        It's a bad idea to not dispose IDisposable objects. But the reasons given there are incorrect, it does not lead to memory leaks. But it does lead to excessive resource usage and potentially even to resource exhaustion (where resource != memory). Yeah and I don't visit StackOverflow anymore for this reason - popular myths get upvoted, correct answers usually get ignored.

        L Offline
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        leppie
        wrote on last edited by
        #8

        Daniel Grunwald wrote:

        But it does lead to excessive resource usage and potentially even to resource exhaustion (where resource != memory).

        That was my point too.

        Daniel Grunwald wrote:

        It's a bad idea to not dispose IDisposable objects.

        I know you should, but you dont have to, unless you want it to be deterministic.

        xacc.ide
        IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
        ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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        • L leppie

          It's like the blind leading the blind.... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2926869/c-do-you-need-to-dispose-of-objects-and-set-them-to-null/2926877#2926877[^] I think I will get similar responses from here too though :sigh:

          xacc.ide
          IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
          ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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          peterchen
          wrote on last edited by
          #9

          SO WHERE IS YOUR UNMANAGED RESOURCE?

          Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
          | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.

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          • P peterchen

            SO WHERE IS YOUR UNMANAGED RESOURCE?

            Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
            | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.

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            Brady Kelly
            wrote on last edited by
            #10

            peterchen wrote:

            SO WHERE IS YOUR UNMANAGED RESOURCE?

            if it was managed I'd know where it was, but my management of my resources (e.g. cash) is notoriously bad. I'd make a good accountant, but no great fund manager.

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            • L leppie

              Daniel Grunwald wrote:

              But it does lead to excessive resource usage and potentially even to resource exhaustion (where resource != memory).

              That was my point too.

              Daniel Grunwald wrote:

              It's a bad idea to not dispose IDisposable objects.

              I know you should, but you dont have to, unless you want it to be deterministic.

              xacc.ide
              IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
              ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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              peterchen
              wrote on last edited by
              #11

              By implementing IDisposable, the class creator explicitely told you to call Dispose(). If the documentation of a class said "You need to call Init() before using an instance of this class", would you reply with "Ah, I don#t feel like it today"?

              Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
              | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.

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              • P peterchen

                By implementing IDisposable, the class creator explicitely told you to call Dispose(). If the documentation of a class said "You need to call Init() before using an instance of this class", would you reply with "Ah, I don#t feel like it today"?

                Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
                | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.

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                leppie
                wrote on last edited by
                #12

                peterchen wrote:

                the class creator explicitely told you to call Dispose().

                No, he actually said: 'If you want to cleanup the resources immediately, then call Dispose(), but if you forget or dont want to, I'll do it anyways when the object finalizer is called.'

                xacc.ide
                IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
                ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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                • A AspDotNetDev

                  John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

                  The GC also doesn't handle objects on the large heap.

                  It does, but in a different way. The large object heap can suffer from fragmentation that causes it to grow beyond what it is actually being used to store, but objects on the LOH still get collected, eventually. I can't remember the details at the moment (I think the framgentation problem is because LOH objects aren't shifted about... they can never move from one position in the LOH to another position in the LOH, because moving large objects is a costly operation), but the GC does "handle" the LOH objects in the sense that they get collected automatically.

                  [Forum Guidelines]

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                  Luc Pattyn
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #13

                  yep, the difference is the move cost is high, therefore moves are avoided and that results in a fragmentation risk. But it isn't as black-and-white as it used to be; I have "frag demonstration code" that used to always work long ago (i.e. reach an intended out of memory situation easily), and more recently fails; I've never seen an improvement in LOH treadment documented though. :)

                  Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]


                  I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.


                  I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).


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                  • L leppie

                    It's like the blind leading the blind.... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2926869/c-do-you-need-to-dispose-of-objects-and-set-them-to-null/2926877#2926877[^] I think I will get similar responses from here too though :sigh:

                    xacc.ide
                    IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
                    ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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                    Luc Pattyn
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #14

                    leppie wrote:

                    I think I will get similar responses from here too though

                    I for one would set you straight if you were to publish such statements in one of CP's programming forums. :|

                    Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]


                    I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.


                    I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).


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                    • L leppie

                      It's like the blind leading the blind.... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2926869/c-do-you-need-to-dispose-of-objects-and-set-them-to-null/2926877#2926877[^] I think I will get similar responses from here too though :sigh:

                      xacc.ide
                      IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
                      ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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                      Lost User
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #15

                      A while back I looked at manual garbage collection and it simply wasn't worthwhile. You would have to be doing something very drastic to consider it.

                      Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^]

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                      • L leppie

                        peterchen wrote:

                        the class creator explicitely told you to call Dispose().

                        No, he actually said: 'If you want to cleanup the resources immediately, then call Dispose(), but if you forget or dont want to, I'll do it anyways when the object finalizer is called.'

                        xacc.ide
                        IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
                        ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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                        PIEBALDconsult
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #16

                        Hear hear! I implement IDisposable on a lot of classes that don't really need it, because the using pattern is so good at letting the reader clearly see the lifetime of an instance. I dislike finding that a class I want to use can't be used in a using statement. In my opinion, object should have a virtual do-nothing Dispose method so that any class or struct can be used with the using statement. (We would therefore not need the IDisposable interface.)

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                        • P PIEBALDconsult

                          Hear hear! I implement IDisposable on a lot of classes that don't really need it, because the using pattern is so good at letting the reader clearly see the lifetime of an instance. I dislike finding that a class I want to use can't be used in a using statement. In my opinion, object should have a virtual do-nothing Dispose method so that any class or struct can be used with the using statement. (We would therefore not need the IDisposable interface.)

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                          Vikram A Punathambekar
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #17

                          PIEBALDconsult wrote:

                          In my opinion, object should have a virtual do-nothing Dispose method so that any class or struct can be used with the using statement. (We would therefore not need the IDisposable interface.)

                          For everybody, not just piebald: it's been well over 1.5 years since I wrote C# production code, so take my words with a large dose of scepticism. I agree with Piebald here. Any gurus care to explain why this isn't the case?

                          Cheers, Vikram. (Got my troika of CCCs!)

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                          • L leppie

                            peterchen wrote:

                            the class creator explicitely told you to call Dispose().

                            No, he actually said: 'If you want to cleanup the resources immediately, then call Dispose(), but if you forget or dont want to, I'll do it anyways when the object finalizer is called.'

                            xacc.ide
                            IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
                            ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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                            peterchen
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #18

                            leppie wrote:

                            when

                            You misspelled "if". I just don't like the default of "your" rule. "Call Dispose unless you know what you are doing" would be ok. "Don't call Dispose unless, umm, you feel like it" is not. Also, Having to call Dispose may affect code structure, which means figuring out later you have to call it may require major changes. [edit] as an example: Omitting Disposal of a resource holdign a file handle: You: "It's ok, we can have zillions of open file handles in windows". Me: "The file handle may remain open forever. Even if the user closed the file, he can't move or modify it in another program - or instance of this program - because we still keep the file handle open. It's one of those completely unecessary, insanely annoying bugs."

                            Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
                            | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.

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                            • V Vikram A Punathambekar

                              PIEBALDconsult wrote:

                              In my opinion, object should have a virtual do-nothing Dispose method so that any class or struct can be used with the using statement. (We would therefore not need the IDisposable interface.)

                              For everybody, not just piebald: it's been well over 1.5 years since I wrote C# production code, so take my words with a large dose of scepticism. I agree with Piebald here. Any gurus care to explain why this isn't the case?

                              Cheers, Vikram. (Got my troika of CCCs!)

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                              Daniel Grunwald
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #19

                              C# is a garbage collected language. If you want explicit memory management for all object, use C++.

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                              • D Daniel Grunwald

                                C# is a garbage collected language. If you want explicit memory management for all object, use C++.

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                                PIEBALDconsult
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #20

                                Daniel Grunwald wrote:

                                C# is a garbage collected language

                                Exactly. It's not about memory management.

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                                • V Vikram A Punathambekar

                                  PIEBALDconsult wrote:

                                  In my opinion, object should have a virtual do-nothing Dispose method so that any class or struct can be used with the using statement. (We would therefore not need the IDisposable interface.)

                                  For everybody, not just piebald: it's been well over 1.5 years since I wrote C# production code, so take my words with a large dose of scepticism. I agree with Piebald here. Any gurus care to explain why this isn't the case?

                                  Cheers, Vikram. (Got my troika of CCCs!)

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                                  TheGreatAndPowerfulOz
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #21

                                  Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:

                                  Any gurus care to explain why this isn't the case?

                                  Because the Dispose pattern was an afterthought.

                                  Fight Big Government:
                                  http://obamacareclassaction.com/
                                  http://obamacaretruth.org/

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                                  • L leppie

                                    It's like the blind leading the blind.... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2926869/c-do-you-need-to-dispose-of-objects-and-set-them-to-null/2926877#2926877[^] I think I will get similar responses from here too though :sigh:

                                    xacc.ide
                                    IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
                                    ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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                                    TheGreatAndPowerfulOz
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #22

                                    You are basically correct, leppie, but getting the great unwashed to understand that the dispose pattern is *not* a contract that *requires* the user to call it is like leading a horse to water. The dispose pattern is a contract with the GC, not with the user of the object.

                                    Fight Big Government:
                                    http://obamacareclassaction.com/
                                    http://obamacaretruth.org/

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                                    • D Daniel Grunwald

                                      C# is a garbage collected language. If you want explicit memory management for all object, use C++.

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                                      Vikram A Punathambekar
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #23

                                      OK, let me put it in a slightly different way: If MS had implemented it Piebald's way, how would we be worse off?

                                      Cheers, Vikram. (Got my troika of CCCs!)

                                      D C 2 Replies Last reply
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                                      • L leppie

                                        It's like the blind leading the blind.... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2926869/c-do-you-need-to-dispose-of-objects-and-set-them-to-null/2926877#2926877[^] I think I will get similar responses from here too though :sigh:

                                        xacc.ide
                                        IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
                                        ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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                                        hammerstein05
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #24

                                        I think that .NET makes it a lot easier for people to get into programming, you don't need to know a lot about what it does, you can put buttons down on forms or web pages and wire up some code and you're good to go. Unfortunately, we they become actual programmers, and they don't understand some of the core functionality of what they're working with. The attitude of "you can't create memory leaks in .NET" is really common. It's oddly apt that this week I've been tasked with finding out why a couple of .NET websites we have consume up to 100mb a page load(eventually causing out of memory exceptions on customer servers) and I'm finding so many interesting discussions on IDisposable and GC at the same time! I've been busily going over objects, implementing finalize and Dispose, trying to figure out what is going wrong and it doesn't seem to make the slightest bit of difference whether I explicitly call Dispose or whether I just leave it be, although I think I have to get a better understanding of what is truly happening to stop some of the objects actually being collected. I like to think that implementing an interface shows my intent. So I don't quite agree with the idea of making object support Dispose by default. I like the using statement, if I create write a class that has a db connection or reads files etc, I'll always make it disposable and in my code wrap it in using. I've been advising the none .NET developers at work (starting to develop .NET applications) to work like this also.

                                        modified on Saturday, May 29, 2010 10:03 AM

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                                        • P peterchen

                                          leppie wrote:

                                          when

                                          You misspelled "if". I just don't like the default of "your" rule. "Call Dispose unless you know what you are doing" would be ok. "Don't call Dispose unless, umm, you feel like it" is not. Also, Having to call Dispose may affect code structure, which means figuring out later you have to call it may require major changes. [edit] as an example: Omitting Disposal of a resource holdign a file handle: You: "It's ok, we can have zillions of open file handles in windows". Me: "The file handle may remain open forever. Even if the user closed the file, he can't move or modify it in another program - or instance of this program - because we still keep the file handle open. It's one of those completely unecessary, insanely annoying bugs."

                                          Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
                                          | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.

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                                          leppie
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #25

                                          peterchen wrote:

                                          You misspelled "if".

                                          No, I meant 'when'. Dispose should always be called from a finalizer.

                                          peterchen wrote:

                                          Omitting Disposal of a resource holdign a file handle:

                                          Again, you should call Close if you want to release the file handle. Dispose will Close the file handle if still open. Not calling Dispose after Close will not cause a resource leak. Please look my example on SO again. What you are almost saying is IDisposable objects stay alive regardless, which is not true. If the programmer makes this object non-GC'able, obviously the GC cant do it's job. Stupid code leads to stupid bugs. You might want to ask why your object is not being GC'ed instead. Like why it is being assigned to an instance variable where a local variable would suffice, etc.

                                          xacc.ide
                                          IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
                                          ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

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