README,v 1.1 2001/08/29 12:02:07 schmidt Exp

Smart Pointers Example
----------------------

This example shows the use of the various smart pointer classes
available in ACE.

There are two programs in this example. Each program implements a
similar set of classes, but with a different style of using smart
pointers. 

The Widget example is written such that objects may only pass raw
pointers between them, and use smart pointers to manage the object
lifetimes. An advantage of this style is the fine-grained control
over the type of smart pointer used in each situation. For example,
if you know that in a particular section of code there is no
concurrency involved, you can strategise ACE_Refcounted_Auto_Ptr on
ACE_Null_Mutex to eliminate locking overhead. Disadvantages of this
style include greater programming complexity and certain ownership
use cases not being easily supported.

The Gadget example is written such that objects are always passed
around using one of the ACE_Strong_Bound_Ptr/ACE_Weak_Bound_Ptr
pair of smart pointers. The advantage of this style is the
reduction in complexity of object lifetime management (almost as
"good" as Java ;-) The disadvantage is that you pay a cost for the
reference counting and locking overhead even in situations where it
may not be strictly necessary.
