Python 2.0 (perhaps off topic)

[Paul Prescod]

Jeremy Hylton wrote:
> 
> Perhaps this is what I get for jumping in in the middle of a
> conversation without learning how it got started.  The example I was
> responding to depended on file object being immediately finalized to
> avoid leaking file descriptors.

This is a documented feature of Python (documented in the FAQ at least).
New users do not currently need to learn otherwise unless they use JPython
which is incompatible in this regard. In other words, this IS a
demonstration of a flaw in GC, or at least in Java GC because it required
a change in the Python language semantics.

I think that that is all anyone has been saying. Many people like the
current semantics and don't trust that a full GC would deterministically
invoke finalizers for arbitrary resources.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

"Silence," wrote Melville, "is the only Voice of God." The assertion,
like its subject, cuts both ways, negating and affirming, implying both
absence and presence, offering us a choice; it's a line that the Society
of American Atheists could put on its letterhead and the Society of
Friends could silently endorse while waiting to be moved by the spirit
to speak. - Listening for Silence by Mark Slouka, Apr. 1999, Harper's