Solution to finalisation problem [Re: fork()]

[William Tanksley]

On Fri, 18 Jun 1999 10:08:06 +1200, Greg Ewing wrote:
>Tim Peters wrote:

>> Greg, this is kind of like asking "if each loop terminates, how can we have
>> an infinite loop?".  That is, sure, if you write code that works, it works
>> <wink>.

>What I meant was, does anyone have a real example of a
>case where there would be serious inconvenience if
>finalisers couldn't play with each other's data?

Good question.

It seems to me that the only time we want finalizers is when we're the
only link to an external resource, and furthermore it seems that the
finalizer should do nothing more than close that external resource.

Wait.  Perhaps I should have said "when we _represent_ an external
resource".

It sure seems to me that one basic definition of an external resource is
that it contains no references to Python objects (except for _perhaps_ a
table of lazy references).

If I'm correct, and we can claim that finalizers are only needed in this
case, perhaps we can get away with making some simplifying assumptions.

>Greg

-- 
-William "Billy" Tanksley
Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!
   :-: May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy!