quite good suggestion, BUT: in the cleanup function check for NULL and if not, then delete and assign to NULL. . I know that delete checks if the pointer is NULL, but for teaching purposes it is good to suggest that. Also, setting it to NULL after deleting is not mandatory, but is, again, good practice and, perhaps, would keep the user to double delete the same pointer and/or access it after deletion.

Sorry to double post, but, for learning purposes, here's another suggestion: If you want to track "troublesome bugs" with memory allocation (i.e. using pointers after you delete them - happens more often than you think), you set them to an invalid, but easily recognizable value, kinda like 0xfefefefe. Then, when the program blows to bits, you look at the pointer in the debugger, and if it matches (or it is close) the 0xfefefefe, you know you have this problem. enjoy

After reading what Servant of the Lord wrote on this, I really can no longer say it is good practice.[/quote]
My point is more against manual memory management and understanding why it should or should not be set to null - I edited my post to clarify.

Put constants before variables in your if-statement comparisons. (Yoda expressions)

I think it mentions it (and gives pros and cons) in CodeComplete where it's not really arguing for it's use but just presenting it as something that's sometimes done.

I've tried it a little, and then decided to dismiss it from my own coding - I also don't often mistype = for ==, but maybe if I was switching between multiple languages and had a compiler that doesn't issue a good warning for that mistake, it might be worth doing.

quite good suggestion, BUT: in the cleanup function check for NULL and if not, then delete and assign to NULL. . I know that delete checks if the pointer is NULL, but for teaching purposes it is good to suggest that. Also, setting it to NULL after deleting is not mandatory, but is, again, good practice and, perhaps, would keep the user to double delete the same pointer and/or access it after deletion.

After reading what Servant of the Lord wrote on this, I really can no longer say it is good practice. Let's say that I do call delete on a pointer twice. If I set it to NULL, nothing happens and the error is never found and corrected. However, if I don't, the program crashes and the error gets fixed. It would seem to be better practice to not give yourself the ability to do things incorrectly in the first place.

Late reply, but better late... you know the rest.

There are two kinds of "best practices".

The first one is over-zealous, over-religious, fanatic approach "the program should blow to bits as soon as I do something stupid, so I get a chance to get all the context I need in order to fix this". This is wonderful, and for a while I was a zealot for this. Again, this is good IN TESTING CONDITIONS, when you have the means to do something about it and another crash won't matter that much.

The second one is the motherly, lovely, caring, "peace to the world" type of thinking, in which you try to recover and give the program as many chances to continue like nothing happened as you can. This is good for release code, when a crash is the worst you could do.

Try to have them both and to easily switch between them.

Think of this as a theater play/ live show. When doing the repetitions, the director/actors stop at every mistake, correct it and start over; that's why they have the repetitions. But during a live performance, if they stumble, they do whatever they can to carry on until the end of the show and recover the normal flow as soon as possible. Stopping the event and restarting it at each mistake would be too much for the audience. (back to game context) Not to mention that console owners will usually reject your game for any crash :)