4 ms·

If you replace "short-lived objects" with "short-lived resources" then Go has defer, Python has context managers.

• josephg 5y ago
  Is Go’s defer used to optimize the GC? I thought it was just syntax sugar to make sure people wouldn’t forget to close file handles and things like that..?
  • steerablesafe 5y ago
    It is for deterministically release resources based on scope (although Go's defer is tied to function-scope for reasons I can't understand). python's context manager is similar. Much like destructors in C++. You can probably say the same about heap allocated memory, but GC'd languages make the choice the non-deterministic release of heap allocations are fine. But there are resources where you can't play the same game (open files, connections, locks) and you need a way to deterministically close them.
    • jatone 5y ago
      defer is tied to function scope because that is the usecase it was designed for. go also has finalizers executing right before deallocation.