RE: [GD-General] Compile times

[Kyle W. <ky...@ga...>]

Mick West wrote:
> When you speak of the determinism of code, I understand that as a
> measure of the extent to which you can predict the behaviour of a piece
> of code.  For example "'delete p' will call the destructor of object *p"
> vs "'delete p' might call the destructor of the object *p"

This general problem -- hiding of potentially expensive operations -- is
really a problem with C++ code in general, not just with smart pointers.
After all, it's not immediately obvious whether a variable going out of
scope will disappear off the stack or call an expensive destructor when a
function exits.  It's not obvious whether object destruction will free
resources or recursively call other destructors or spin-lock waiting for
another thread.  And the C++ emphasis on interface over implementation makes
it harder for users of a class to keep up with the cost of
creating/deleting/using instances of that class.

The uncertainty is, of course, the price we pay for the higher level of
abstraction at which C++ allows us to operate.  I like C++, and I like smart
pointers, and I find them both quite useful for the applications on which I
work.  I'm working on complex games on PCs and newer consoles, though.  If I
were writing for the GBA, or PalmOS, or cell phone applications, I'd be a
lot more likely to give up smart pointers and classes in favor of the
tighter control of straight C.

Kyle