True disposable objects (add "Finalized!" assertion)

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Friday, May 04, 2012 18:28:51 Denis Shelomovskij wrote:
> This idea is too obvious and I suppose I'm the only one not knowing it,
> but I have never seen it's implementation. Why?
> 
> The idea:
> 1. `Object` class has hidden `isAlive` field which is true since
> construction and up to finalization.
> 2. Every method asserts that the object is alive first.
> 3. There is an `finalize` function that just rt_finalize an object in
> debug mode but can even free memory in release mode.
> 
> Isn't it no-brainer? Isn't it the only way to debug manual memory
> management and shared resources without error-prone boilerplate?
> 
> This is what I missed in C#, where I can dispose an object but I have to
> manually check the object isn't disposed every time I use it or in every
> it's method to find where I'm doing something with a disposed object by
> a mistake.
> 
> 
> IMHO finding using of dead references is almost as major as not allowing
> to free memory of alive objects (I mean GC), but GC is often implemented
> and dead references detection isn't.
> 
> Strongly require your thoughts.

And why would you even _have_ a dead object? It's the GC's job to destroy and 
free GC-allocated objects. The only case where you might normally run into a 
dead object would be if you use clear, but if you're using clear in situations 
where you then might end up using the object afterwards, then it's likely 
you're using it unwisely.

- Jonathan M Davis