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Home > Fragmented - Android Developer Podcast > 025: Effective Java for Android developers : Item 7
Podcast: Fragmented - Android Developer Podcast
Episode:

025: Effective Java for Android developers : Item 7
Category: Technology
Duration: 00:11:35
Publish Date: 2015-12-27 20:46:00
Description:

In this mini Fragment, we introduce Joshua's seventh Item and a momentous end to the first chapter: Avoid finalizers

Stay tuned for more items from our "Effective Java for Android developers" Fragment series.

Show Notes

Avoid finalizers

  • If you don't know what they are, ignorance is bliss. If you know what they are, avoid them!
  • Finalizers in Java != destructors in C++ (C++ counterparts to constructors).
  • In C++ destructors
    • you reclaim resources here (Java has GC)
    • you also reclaim non-memory resources (use the try-finally block in Java)
  • (unpredicatable amt of time between object becoming unreachable and finalizer being executed) Never do anything time critical in finalizer!
    • System.gc + System.runFinalization increase chances - no guarantee
    • System.runFinalizersOnExit + Runtime.runFinalizersOnExit are the ones that do - but they are fatally flawed
  • Java 7 has try with resources, which is also interesting and auto-closeables. [Android] devs can only dream of these.
  • If an uncaught exception is thrown in a finalizer, it is ignored, and the finalization abruptly terminates.
  • Severe performance penalty for using finalizers - (one e.g.) time to create and destroy simple object goes from 5.6ns -> 2400ns
  • Only valid use: as a safety net or to terminate noncritical native resources.
  • [Android] you're probably better off using Android's lifecycle methods.

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