does python have useless destructors?

[Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 07:22:22 -0700, David Turner wrote:

>> I will repeat: it's unimplementable efficiently when
>> Python runtime is hosted by a language with non-refcount GC.
> 
> So are we to take it that efficiency considerations are a serious
> impediment to a potentially valuable safety feature?

Yes, if the efficiency difference is big enough. I don't know if it's big
enough; perhaps it is.

But there is another reason: adding refcounting would complicate
interfacing between Python and the host language, and would introduce
the possibility of bugs in refcounting.

The correct way is to provide a good syntax for explicit bracketing of the
lifetime of an object. try...finally works but is ugly.

-- 
   __("<         Marcin Kowalczyk
   \__/       qrczak at knm.org.pl
    ^^     http://qrnik.knm.org.pl/~qrczak/