[Python-Dev] Linus on garbage collection

[Greg Ewing]

Mark Shannon wrote:

> For example, a file object will close itself during finalization,
> but its still a valid object, just a closed file rather than an open one.

It might be valid in the sense that you won't get a segfault.
But the point is that the destructors of some objects may be
relying on other objects still being in a certain state,
e.g. a file still being open.

One would have to adopt a highly defensive coding style in
destructors, verging on paranoia, to be sure that one's destructor
code was completely immune to this kind of problem.

All of this worry goes away if the destructor is not a method
of the object being destroyed, but something external that
runs *after* the object has disappeared.

-- 
Greg