[Python-Dev] Acquire/release functionality (original) (raw)

Chermside, Michael mchermside@ingdirect.com
Thu, 6 Feb 2003 17:26:30 -0500

Alex Martelli writes:

I LIKE this: a termination-method SHOULD be idempotent (a no-op when called more than once), so that if various ways to "ensure the termination method is called" happen to be used all at once, that doesn't break anything.

I'm not sure I agree. You write your code which does 3 different things to ensure that the file gets closed. Then I, the poor maintenance programmer, is asked to make a change... don't close the file until later on. I find the spot in the code where you=20 close the file and "fix" it... but the file still seems to close! I find ANOTHER spot where you close it, and remove that one too... but the file STILL won't behave.

If we had a SINGLE approach which was reliable and easy-to-use,=20 (which is, of course, what we're aiming for) couldn't we just use=20 that everywhere, and use it just once?

-- Michael Chermside