Question

I’m basically a C++ guy trying to venture into C#. From the basic tutorial of C#, I happen to find that all objects are created and stored dynamically (also true for Java) and are accessed by references and hence there’s no need for copy constructors. There is also no need of bitwise copy when passing objects to a function or returning objects from a function. This makes C# much simpler than C++.

However, I read somewhere that operating on objects exclusively through references imposes limitations on the type of operations that one can perform thus restricting the programmer of complete control. One limitation is that the programmer cannot precisely specify when an object can be destroyed.

Can someone please elaborate on other limitations? (with a sample code if required)

Answer 1

Most of the “limitations” are by design rather than considered a deficiency (you may not agree of course)

You cannot determine/you don’t have to worry about

• when an object is destroyed
• where the object is in memory
• how big it is (unless you are tuning the application)
• using pointer arithmetic
• accessing out side an object
• accessing an object with the wrong type
• sharing objects between threads is simpler
• whether the object is on the stack or the heap. (The stack is being used more and more in Java)
• fragmentation of memory (This is not true of all collectors)