Final garbage collection?

[Will Ware]

Jerome Quelin (jerome.quelin at insalien.org) wrote:
>        When a [Perl] interpreter thread finally shuts down (usually
>        when your program exits), then a rather costly but
>        complete mark-and-sweep style of garbage collection is
>        performed...
> I was wondering why Python does not implement such a mechanism, that
> seems to me a Good Thing (tm)

Guido (Python's designer) is the final authority on decisions like
this, so if you feel strongly about it, he's the person to talk to.
My humble speculation is that a case has not yet arisen where great
harm has been done by a failure to execute the __del__ methods for
all objects stuck in circular references. Off the top of my head it
sounds like it's probably a good idea, but I don't know Guido's
thinking on the matter.
-- 
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Resistance is futile. Capacitance is efficacious.
Will Ware	email:    wware @ world.std.com