从历史上看，在某些边缘情况下，它在某些操作系统上确实很重要。这些边缘情况在未来可能会存在。

Here's an example, on SunOS in the Sun 3 era, there was an issue if a process used exec (or more traditionally fork and then exec), the subsequent new process would inherit the same memory footprint as the parent and it could not be shrunk. If a parent process allocated 1/2 gig of memory and didn't free it before calling exec, the child process would start using that same 1/2 gig (even though it wasn't allocated). This behavior was best exhibited by SunTools (their default windowing system), which was a memory hog. Every app that it spawned was created via fork/exec and inherited SunTools footprint, quickly filling up swap space.

You have to first realize that there's a big difference between a perceived memory leak and an actual memory leak. Very frequently analysis tools will report many red herrings, and label something as having been leaked (memory or resources such as handles etc) where it actually isn't. Often times this is due to the analysis tool's architecture. For example, certain analysis tools will report run time objects as memory leaks because it never sees those object freed. But the deallocation occurs in the runtime's shutdown code, which the analysis tool might not be able to see.

尽管如此，仍然会有一些时候，您会遇到实际的内存泄漏，这些泄漏要么很难发现，要么很难修复。现在的问题是，是否可以将它们保留在代码中?

The ideal answer is, "no, never." A more pragmatic answer may be "no, almost never." Very often in real life you have limited number of resources and time to resolve and endless list of tasks. When one of the tasks is eliminating memory leaks, the law of diminishing returns very often comes in to play. You could eliminate say 98% of all memory leaks in an application in a week, but the remaining 2% might take months. In some cases it might even be impossible to eliminate certain leaks because of the application's architecture without a major refactoring of code. You have to weigh the costs and benefits of eliminating the remaining 2%.

No.

作为专业人士，我们不应该问自己“这样做是否合适?”，而应该问自己“这样做是否有一个好的理由?”“寻找内存泄漏是一种痛苦”并不是一个好的理由。

我喜欢把事情简单化。简单的规则是，我的程序应该没有内存泄漏。

这也让我的生活变得简单。如果我检测到内存泄漏，我会消除它，而不是通过一些复杂的决策树结构来确定它是否是“可接受的”内存泄漏。

它类似于编译器警告——警告对我的特定应用程序是致命的吗?也许不是。

但归根结底，这是一个职业纪律问题。容忍编译器警告和容忍内存泄漏是一个坏习惯，最终会给我带来麻烦。

举个极端的例子，外科医生把手术设备留在病人体内是可以接受的吗?

尽管移除设备的成本/风险可能会超过保留设备的成本/风险，并且可能在某些情况下它是无害的，但如果我在外科医生网站上看到这个问题，看到除了“不”之外的任何答案，这将严重削弱我对医疗行业的信心。

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如果是第三方图书馆把这种情况强加给我，我会严重怀疑该图书馆的整体质量。这就像我试驾一辆车，发现其中一个杯托里有几个松动的垫圈和螺母——这本身可能不是什么大问题，但这表明我缺乏对质量的承诺，所以我会考虑其他选择。

我相信有人能想出一个理由说“是”，但不会是我。 与其说“不”，我要说的是，这不应该是一个“是”或“否”的问题。 有许多方法可以管理或控制内存泄漏，许多系统都有内存泄漏。

在离开地球的设备上有NASA的系统为这个做了计划。系统会经常自动重启，这样内存泄漏就不会对整体操作造成致命影响。这只是一个遏制的例子。

我相信，如果你有一个程序，它将运行几秒钟，然后退出，这是可以的，它只是为个人使用。一旦程序结束，任何内存泄漏都会被清除。

当你有一个运行很长时间的程序并且用户依赖它时，问题就来了。另外，让你的程序中存在内存泄漏是一种坏的编码习惯，特别是如果它们可能在某一天将代码转换为其他内容的话。

总之，最好删除内存泄漏。

从历史上看，在某些边缘情况下，它在某些操作系统上确实很重要。这些边缘情况在未来可能会存在。

Here's an example, on SunOS in the Sun 3 era, there was an issue if a process used exec (or more traditionally fork and then exec), the subsequent new process would inherit the same memory footprint as the parent and it could not be shrunk. If a parent process allocated 1/2 gig of memory and didn't free it before calling exec, the child process would start using that same 1/2 gig (even though it wasn't allocated). This behavior was best exhibited by SunTools (their default windowing system), which was a memory hog. Every app that it spawned was created via fork/exec and inherited SunTools footprint, quickly filling up swap space.