Globally accessible objects in threads

[stampede]

I agree with SixDegrees, invalid references could be even more painful to debug, consider this:

#include <iostream>
 
class Test{
public:
	int x;
};
 
int main( int argc, char ** argv ){
	Test * test = new Test();
	Test& ref = *test;
	ref.x = 10;
	std::cout << "value is " << ref.x;
	delete test;
	std::cout << "\nwhat now ? " << ref.x;
	// test->x = 0; // this will cause crash on my machine, line above not
	return 0;
}

#include <iostream>

class Test{
public:
	int x;
};

int main( int argc, char ** argv ){
	Test * test = new Test();
	Test& ref = *test;
	ref.x = 10;
	std::cout << "value is " << ref.x;
	delete test;
	std::cout << "\nwhat now ? " << ref.x;
	// test->x = 0; // this will cause crash on my machine, line above not
	return 0;
}

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on my machine it prints:

value is 10
what now ? 7409624

program runs without complains, while the "pointer" version nicely crashes. This is very simple example, but try to debug such errors with more complicated code. Not very pleasant experience.