Python vs Java garbage collection?

[Erik Max Francis]

"Martin v. Löwis" wrote:

> See, and this is precisely where you are mistaken. Whether a change
> can
> or cannot happen is only marginally affected by what the language
> reference says.

Changes can always happen, of course.  But if you're writing software in
a language and want that software to continue to work tomorrow, your
best bet is to follow the guidelines that are set forth by whatever
standards, reference implementations, or documentation that you have
available.  Since for Python, that's the documentation available on
python.org, and that documentation _explicitly_ states that relying on
timely finalization is a bad idea, relying upon it is, well, a bad idea
if you want to write software that continues to work properly down the
road.

> The commitment to not breaking too many applications
> across releases of CPython is a much bigger influence. The reference
> counting is so ingrained into the implementation, and the many
> extension
> modules, and a large number of applications, that there is no chance
> that this will change in a foreseeable future, indepedent of what "the
> language" says.

As I have said, and probably will have to say many more times before
this accursed thread dies, the suggestion that the finalization behavior
of CPython might change was entirely theoretical.  I have no doubt that
it will never change for the life of CPython.  An utterly theoretical,
trivial point has been inflated as if it were the main focus of my
comment, which it never was.

I do not think that CPython's finalization behavior will change.  I
suggested it merely as a theoretical possibility.  Please stop treating
it as if it were all I had ever said on the subject.

-- 
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