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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

The difference is that if you're writing a program you know the scope of use of all libraries, whether they be externally loaded or internal abstraction boundaries, and also know the scope of use of the program, and can make a call as to whether cleanup during opetation is required.

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Not really. In theory you can, but in practice there are parts written by a different team and you don't know the scope of there parts.

I also know someone who maintains some Clinton era encryption. that code is controlled who can know about it as obsecurity was all you were allowed. There are other pathalogical cases where you can't know everything about your program-

I was specifically thinking of "creating" when I said writing, not maintaining or extending. And yes, while it can still be large enough to have multiple people working on it, then the "you" is actually a group, and of course you will coordinate on what you're doing and can very easily confirm you all understand the boundaries of how the components you are creating interact.

Extending something you did not originally write may be quite different, of course.

Obviously, the "free-less programs" are not a "one size fits all" option. Like pretty much everything in IT and the dev world.

But those parts, if they exist, are irrelevant to the current discussion, because they are not the parts you are writing.

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