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Cleaning the Temp folder

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by fadbel

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Having just received your newsletter about "Manually cleaning your Temp folder" brought to mind one of my oldest complaints.
Years ago, when I was new to this community, it was considered bad programming to create a program that used temporary files and locations in memory and did not have a cleanup routine when the program terminated.
It seems that the "bad" programmers have proliferated carrying their sloppy practices with them. Some applications even forget to clean up the temp files that are created in the originating directory leaving behind files with .tmp extensions or ~names that are NOT in the system temp directory.
Any worthwhile program worth its salt should be able to "wipe itself" after completion. Its not only efficient, it's sanitary too!

2 replies

by stress junkie

I learned to program in college in the 1970s and I had
some great teacher. Back then, though, there were
bunches of children making millions of dollars writing
game software for companies like Atari. These kids
never learned any programming discipline. Eventually
many of these children became the propeller heads of
the 1980s. Their "you can't make me" approach to
writing software still proliferates into new software
products. The propeller heads of old are the program
managers of today, teaching and mandating their bad
programming techniques to people new to the field.

by fadbel

I fully agree and like the way you put it; Propeller Heads...cool!
I was never a formal programmer but learned enough about it when I was involved as a Systems Analyst, to complain to the programmers in my company about "Wiping up after themselves".
To do so in every program is such a simple sub-routine that I'm amazed that nobody has ever used it.
Apparantly, our VOICE or opinion is not LOUD ENOUGH to shake up the application world.
One of the reasons programs fail, crash, commit "Hari Kari" is the rush of the companies to get a working model out in the World.
Most programmers that I've met and dealt with would be forever "tweaking" their efforts. I know that the very few small programs I've written never actually had a completion to my full satisfaction.
Thanks again for your comments.

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