Re: Accessor methods and (auto)release: conclusion
Re: Accessor methods and (auto)release: conclusion
- Subject: Re: Accessor methods and (auto)release: conclusion
- From: Ondra Cada <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2002 13:56:16 +0200
On Tuesday, August 6, 2002, at 10:34 , Marcel Weiher wrote:
Another issue to be aware of is that autorelease-pools are patented by
Apple. Therefore, their use presents a definite obstacle to
code-portability to, for example, GNUStep.
I don't know U.S. patent law well and I admit that, living outside U.S., I
am somewhat indifferent to the crap (well, if something allows to patent
things like this, it is nothing other).
Nevertheless it seems to me as a roaring nonsense. Autorelease pools were
invented (so far as I know, might be even sooner) by NeXT and Sun when
OpenStep was designed. They were part of it for a very long time, and they
were definitely part of GNUStep for *much longer than Apple even knows
they exist*!
As for other issues
Once again, I see their use in default accessors as completely gratuitous,
and actually somewhat harmful. I also have to admit that in the light
of the Apple patent, their gratuitous introduction does have implications
that I don't like at all.
well, I understand this reasoning, but personally like more the one Ali
and I have presented (incidentally, I use autorelease-based patterns very
very happily for ten years in many hundreds of thousands lines; never I
have an accessor-based retain problem!). Nevertheless, I guess we perhaps
might agree that
(a) which you call "accessors" I call "very very plain ones";
(b) things like -title/-setTitle: I call accessors too; you have to invent
another name for them (if needed);
(c) for them, those patterns I've presented (namely, using copy) are very
very practical;
and, most importantly
(d) if you, in the class documentation / commented headers whether the
particular setter/getter autoreleases or not and whether it copies or not,
there would be no harm anyway.
---
Ondra Cada
OCSoftware: email@hidden
http://www.ocs.cz
private email@hidden
http://www.ocs.cz/oc
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.