On-topic from <http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=612606>:
I'm interested in audio, so I'm looking over the (frankly horrible)
documentation for this new "Pulse Audio" thing, and I see this
function in its shared lib:
pa_xmalloc()
Allocates the specified number of bytes, just like malloc() does.
However, in case of OOM, terminate.
First of all, why are so many programmers who write a Linux shared
library offering a simple wrapper function around malloc? Is it too
hard for an app to just call malloc? Is anyone so completely absent-
minded that he can't remember malloc is used to allocate memory, so
he needs an equivalent wrapper in every shared lib he uses?
Second of all, in the case of "out of memory", it just terminates
your app right then and there??? Oh great, The enduser spends an hour
working on something, does some operation, and BANG! -- all his hard
work goes down the drain because some shared library decides it wants
to terminate the app. Absolutely ridiculous. And I see that other
pulse audio functions call this pa_xmalloc too, so good luck getting
around it.
I can just see it now. Every programmer who uses pulse audio will
need to add a feature to his app called "Auto-save before every Pulse
Audio call because this may be your last chance to preserve your
work". Yeah, that should really yield "low latency".
Sorry, but anyone who puts a call to exit() in a shared library
should simply be shot dead. That's really, really crummy, amateurish
programming. In a shared lib, if something fails, the professional
thing to do is return some error code/signal to the app, indicating
that the function failed. Let the app decide what it wants to do. You
don't terminate the app on your own.
And anyone who makes such a shared library a part of his operating
system should be shot dead, and then stabbed through the heart with a
stake just to make sure he's really dead.
God help us if this pulse audio thing is ever chosen to replace ALSA
in the kernel. This will make Linux stability and reliability go to
hell if you have operating system calls terminating apps at will.
