does python have useless destructors?

[Aahz]

In article <e251b7ba.0406130400.b65e143 at posting.google.com>,
David Turner <dkturner at telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
>Objects with a __del__ method shall be reference counted.  When the
>reference count reaches zero, the __del__ method shall be called, and
>any subobjects that have a __del__ method shall also be unreferenced.
>
>The point at which the memory allocated to the object is freed is
>largely irrelevant.  The point is that there's a predictable time at
>which __del__ is called.  This is what enables the RAII idiom.
>
>Now, this could be tricky to implement because we are now separating
>the concepts of "destruction" and "finalization".  But it's certainly
>not impossible, and it would add a powerful new concept to the
>language.  So I don't think the idea should be rejected out of hand.
>
>Is this clearer?

Problem is, that's exactly the situation we currently have in CPython, so
I don't see what the improvement is.  Are you suggesting that Jython
change its semantics?
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"as long as we like the same operating system, things are cool." --piranha