> Because they are all the consequence of holding it wrong, avoiding RAII solutions.
The reason why C++ is as popular as it is is in large part due to how easy it is to upgrade an existing C codebase in-place. Doing a complete RAII rewrite is at best a long term objective, if not often completely out of the question.
Acknowledging this reality means giving affordances like `defer` that allow upgrading C codebases and C++ code written in a C style easier without having to rewrite the universe. Because if you're asking me to rewrite code in a C++ style all in one go, I might not pick C++.
EDIT: It also occurs to me that destructors also have limitations. They can't throw, which means that if you encounter an issue in a dtor you often have to ignore it and hope it wasn't important.
I ran into this particular annoyance when I was writing my own stream abstractions - I had to hope that closing the stream in the dtor didn't run into trouble.
The reason why C++ is as popular as it is is in large part due to how easy it is to upgrade an existing C codebase in-place. Doing a complete RAII rewrite is at best a long term objective, if not often completely out of the question.
Acknowledging this reality means giving affordances like `defer` that allow upgrading C codebases and C++ code written in a C style easier without having to rewrite the universe. Because if you're asking me to rewrite code in a C++ style all in one go, I might not pick C++.
EDIT: It also occurs to me that destructors also have limitations. They can't throw, which means that if you encounter an issue in a dtor you often have to ignore it and hope it wasn't important.
I ran into this particular annoyance when I was writing my own stream abstractions - I had to hope that closing the stream in the dtor didn't run into trouble.