[HN Gopher] Pointers and Memory Management in Python ___________________________________________________________________ Pointers and Memory Management in Python Author : zerointensity Score : 58 points Date : 2022-03-20 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.com) (TXT) w3m dump (github.com) | [deleted] | gswdh wrote: | I don't understand the problem people have with pointers, they | are an amazing tool. And the negative attitude towards manual | memory allocation just seems like laziness to me and even | suggests a lack of understanding for both what you're doing and | how computers work. | MrYellowP wrote: | Wow! Thanks! :D | | Please ignore the haters, they have little to no idea. :D | cuteboy19 wrote: | Ok now this truly awful print(1, 2) # prints "2 | 2" | | Pointers are bad but this implementation is broken. There is no | way to do this using pointers IRL. | faizshah wrote: | Cool project, did you learn anything interesting from | implementing it? | | I think I see that the malloc functionality is provided by some | DLLs that you import: | https://github.com/ZeroIntensity/pointers.py/blob/master/src... I | haven't tried that yet any lessons learned on that or was it | pretty straightforward to import some DLLs and start using them | in python? | mkesper wrote: | Why not? | | Because pointers are broken and harmful. | linkdd wrote: | Once compiled to assembly, every data is accessed via pointers. | Every data structure is represented with pointers. Almost | everything is a pointer. | | According to you, all softwares are broken and harmful? | | Programming languages can provide a safe interface to pointers | (just like Rust do with `Box<>`, `Rc<>`, `Arc<>`, or C++ in | some ways with `shared_ptr<>` and `unique_ptr<>`). | | Also, "Why not?" here clearly means "I did it for fun" / | "Because I can". | lr4444lr wrote: | Cmon. In a good faith reading, he means as a matter of | developer access. And he's not wrong as concerns what 90+% of | devs have to get done at their jobs. | linkdd wrote: | Yes pointers are hard to get right. No, depicting it as | "broken and harmful" is not ok, even with good faith | reading. | artemonster wrote: | Its the same crowd that goes screeching when they see ,,goto" | _eyeroll_ | linkdd wrote: | Wait until you see people saying "exceptions are glorified | goto". | | Basically, every statement of the form "X is broken and | harmful" either don't understand X, or have read it | somewhere else without giving a second thought. | | X exists because it had some use at some point. Y and Z are | implemented thanks to X. Now we no longer need to do X by | hand. This does not make it broken nor harmful. | aunty_helen wrote: | You could extrapolate this right down to the binary layer. | | Are lower level technology's more dangerous, no. | | Are they more difficult to get right? Yes. | | Do we want to stop worrying about finicky correctness or | pointers and worry about building more complex things? | Probably yes also. | linkdd wrote: | > Do we want to stop worrying about finicky correctness or | pointers and worry about building more complex things? | Probably yes also. | | Which is why I mentioned the safe higher-level interfaces | provided by programming languages. | | Yet, I think it's important to learn about the lower level | technology to better understand the higher level | technology. | | And definitely stop spitting on lower level technologies. | kmbfjr wrote: | I'll notify the kernel team of this development. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-20 23:00 UTC)