I have to entirely disagree with you here. I *like* set-and-forget semantics. (I'm actually concerned about mark-and-sweep garbage collection in Perl 6 going toward's Java's non-guarantee of destructor calls, though I don't really know where Perl 6 stands on it.) It means that the compiler will generate code that properly handles resource reclamation, whether that's releasing a database connection (and rolling back any transactions currently underway), or deleting a temporary file (talk about security holes!), or decrementing a lock counter (possibly freeing it). It means that I can't forget to do the cleanup. And I forget a lot.

Missing a "release" on a lock, for example, can lead to deadlock. Missing database connection releases can result in wasted server resources in tracking unfinished transactions, possibly reducing responsiveness on the server. Failing to delete temporary files can result in disk space consumption, often on partitions that are among the smallest partitions on the box if on unix, possibly exposing old data to users that shouldn't see it (though leaving it open to other users for *any* length of time is bad, but auto-delete can reduce the scope of the vulnerability). These can be catastrophic errors. Manually freeing resources that can be freed automatically is just asking for problems. Letting the compiler do it for you is Lazy - in the right way.

In reply to Re^11: Warnings on unused variables? by Tanktalus
in thread Warnings on unused variables? by AZed

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.