On Sun, Aug 24, 2003 at 10:48:02AM -0700, Steve Fink wrote: > It would probably make discussion easier if people switched to using > better terminology. I prefer using "destruction" to mean the memory > for an object actually getting freed, and "finalization" for whatever > cleanup actions an object performs at some point after it is no longer > accessible. So "timely destruction" is not very important, because > destruction only needs to be timely enough to avoid running out of > memory. "Timely finalization" is what we spend much time talking and > worrying about. In Perl5, if you didn't think about it too hard then > you could get away with thinking of them as being the same thing, even > though they never really were. > > I guess you could think of the lifecycle of an individual object as > being controlled by a few significant life events: > > 1. birth > 2. the last reference disappearing > 3. finalization > 4. destruction
That's a nice idea, but I suspect most people are thinking in perl5 terms of "Timely DESTROY", so "destruction" is bound to be more commonly used. Tim.
