[fpc-pascal] TThread.FreeOnTerminate

[OBones]

Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 14 Dec 2018, el es wrote:
>
>> On 13/12/2018 22:23, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, 13 Dec 2018, Martin Frb wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---- Besides, the documentation does not say that FreeOnTerminate
>>>> is limited to be used in the thread construction. Especially since
>>>> its effect is not due until "terminate"
>>>
>>> For me this is a given.
>>>
>>> Almost by definition, changing anything in a thread after the
>>> constructor has returned, is dangerous. You should set up everything
>>> in the constructor.
>>
>>
>> Then this TThread.FreeOnTerminate property should not really be public,
>> if it's only to be used in 'private' context of the constructor?
>
> I think FreeOnTerminate should not even exist. IMO it should simply be 
> 'True'.
This is where I strongly disagree, to me it should always be False, 
because having things free up themselves at unpredictable times is a 
recipe for disaster which already hit me badly.
For instance, if a thread is still running when a DLL unloads, you get 
deadlocks. Of if a thread finishes after the memory manager has been 
unloaded, you are in for a hellish shutdown.

All this leads me to believe that FreeOnTerminate should always be left 
to False, even if I can understand it's usefulness in some very specific 
cases.