As a long-time C# programmer, I have recently come to learn more about the advantages of Resource Acquisition Is Initialization (RAII). In particular, I have discovered that the C# idiom:
using (var dbConn = new DbConnection(connStr)) {
// do stuff with dbConn
}
has the C++ equivalent:
{
DbConnection dbConn(connStr);
// do stuff with dbConn
}
meaning that remembering to enclose the use of resources like DbConnection in a using block is unnecessary in C++ ! This seems to a major advantage of C++. This is even more convincing when you consider a class that has an instance member of type DbConnection, for example
class Foo {
DbConnection dbConn;
// ...
}
In C# I would need to have Foo implement IDisposable as such:
class Foo : IDisposable {
DbConnection dbConn;
public void Dispose()
{
dbConn.Dispose();
}
}
and what's worse, every user of Foo would need to remember to enclose Foo in a using block, like:
using (var foo = new Foo()) {
// do stuff with "foo"
}
Now looking at C# and its Java roots I am wondering… did the developers of Java fully appreciate what they were giving up when they abandoned the stack in favor of the heap, thus abandoning RAII?
(Similarly, did Stroustrup fully appreciate the significance of RAII?)
Best Answer
I am pretty sure Gosling did not get the significance of RAII at the time he designed Java. In his interviews he often talked about reasons for leaving out generics and operator overloading, but never mentioned deterministic destructors and RAII.
Funny enough, even Stroustrup wasn't aware of the importance of deterministic destructors at the time he designed them. I can't find the quote, but if you are really into it, you can find it among his interviews here: http://www.stroustrup.com/interviews.html