Re: [Plib-devel] Memory leaks, was: GL_COLOR_MATERIAL pitfall

[Michael K. <neg...@ea...>]

This is getting rather off topic from the list, unless everyone wants to
read about memory management and auto garbage collectors.

----- Original Message -----
From: Eero Pajarre <epa...@ko...>
To: <pli...@li...>
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 12:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Plib-devel] Memory leaks, was: GL_COLOR_MATERIAL pitfall


> > Also, a pointer may accidentially point to what can be concidered a
"live"
> > block of ram - one that you have write access to - but that does not
mean it
> > is a valid block of ram that you should be writing to, in all likelyhood
> > you'll be overwriting part of your program or data.
> >
>
> It might be useful to clear all the pointers which are not
> pointing to valid data.
>

Yes, thank you.

The point is that automatic garbage collectors do not work well, in my
opinion. Obviously nothing beats paying attention to what you are doing. But
turning a blind eye towards your pointers and hoping that a garbage
collector "does the right thing" is not a good idea.

I would much rather use a program that identified memory leaks during
development, and ship an optimized program, than to include garbage
collector routines simply because it was easier. Perhaps it's simply
different schools of thought. I write 3D applications that need performance.
For me, personally, the overhead of garbage collection is not worth it - I
would rather identify the flaws in my code and eliminate them.



-Michael Kurth