Re: Leaking Memory
Re: Leaking Memory
- Subject: Re: Leaking Memory
- From: Angela Brett <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 19:15:11 +1300
At 10:50 PM -0500 20/1/2003, David Cairns wrote:
I know what I wrote wasn't _exactly_ up to par, and I _do_ know all
about reference counts and NSAutorelease pools, et al; I was only
trying to spare the original poster of the question with a way to
use cocoa in a basic manner. I know that when I began in cocoa last
august or so, memory management was the one thing that I was still
confused about in November.
No offense, but being inaccurate (even if it's supposed to make it
easier for someone to understand) just makes things more difficult
when people learn the truth. Simplifications are fine, but only if
they're actually accurate. I remember so many times in school where
we were taught something one year and then told the next year to
forget what we'd learnt because it was a simplification which wasn't
accurate. Perhaps the reason you were still confused about memory
management in November was that somebody told you that release
deallocates an object, while the book* says otherwise.
If somebody is told that -release deallocates an object right a way,
or that it is called using release(), they will believe that and then
get confused when told that it's not the case. The true meaning of
retain and release is not too complicated, and it does need to be
properly understood even for writing simple beginners' applications,
so it may as well be spelled out to begin with. Some people who have
been told how retain and release really work might not quite
understand it at first, and might think that release deallocates an
object straight away - but telling them that's right is not going to
help at all. The truth is always easier to understand than a
simplification like that, because sooner or later you have to
un-learn the simplification and learn the truth anyway, so why not
learn it from the start?
Well that's my rant for the day. ;^) Note that this email was not
intended to be an an attack on David in any way, it's just my views
on education.
* The Objective-C Programming Language, which is installed with the
developer tools and should be the first thing anyone who wants to
learn Cocoa with Objective-C reads.
--
Angela Brett email@hidden
http://acronyms.co.nz/angela
"We must believe in free will, we have no choice!" -- Isaac Bashevis Singer
_______________________________________________
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.