What do you mean by “value semantics” and “general resource management”?
Bjarne: “Value semantics” is commonly used to refer to classes where the objects have the property that when you copy one, you get two independent copies (with the same value). For example:
X x1 = a;
X x2 = x1; // now x1==x2
x1 = b; // changes x1 but not x2
// now x1!=x2 ( provided X(a)!=X(b) )
This is of course what we have for usual numeric types, such as ints, doubles, complex numbers, and mathematical abstractions, such as vectors. This is a most useful notion, which C++ supports for built-in types and for any user-defined type for which we want it. This contrast to Java where built-in types such and char and int follow it, but user-defined types do not, and indeed cannot. As in Simula, all user-defined types in Java have reference semantics. In C++, a programmer can support either, as the desired semantics of a type requires. C# (incompletely) follows C++ in supporting user-defined types with value semantics.
“General resource management” refers to the popular technique of having a resource (e.g., a file handle or a lock) owned by an object. If that object is a scoped variable, the lifetime of the variable puts a maximum limit on the time the resource is held. Typically, a constructor acquires the resource and the destructor releases it. This is often called RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization) and integrates beautifully with error handling using exceptions. Obviously, not every resource can be handled in this way, but many can, and for those, resource management becomes implicit and efficient.
Source of Information : Oreilly - Masterminds of Programming
Bjarne: “Value semantics” is commonly used to refer to classes where the objects have the property that when you copy one, you get two independent copies (with the same value). For example:
X x1 = a;
X x2 = x1; // now x1==x2
x1 = b; // changes x1 but not x2
// now x1!=x2 ( provided X(a)!=X(b) )
This is of course what we have for usual numeric types, such as ints, doubles, complex numbers, and mathematical abstractions, such as vectors. This is a most useful notion, which C++ supports for built-in types and for any user-defined type for which we want it. This contrast to Java where built-in types such and char and int follow it, but user-defined types do not, and indeed cannot. As in Simula, all user-defined types in Java have reference semantics. In C++, a programmer can support either, as the desired semantics of a type requires. C# (incompletely) follows C++ in supporting user-defined types with value semantics.
“General resource management” refers to the popular technique of having a resource (e.g., a file handle or a lock) owned by an object. If that object is a scoped variable, the lifetime of the variable puts a maximum limit on the time the resource is held. Typically, a constructor acquires the resource and the destructor releases it. This is often called RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization) and integrates beautifully with error handling using exceptions. Obviously, not every resource can be handled in this way, but many can, and for those, resource management becomes implicit and efficient.
Source of Information : Oreilly - Masterminds of Programming
|
|
0 comments
Post a Comment