thrown into a backend project as a backend dev with a language I don't know, how fucked am I?
The title itself is a recipe for disaster. Also this is a semi rant.
Yesterday I was informed that I will have the honour to implement the core functionality - which is an interface layer to use the driver of a very expensive hardware shit - of the software I’ve been working on as a frontend dev.
There are two possibilities for the language: C++ or C#. The one that was proposed/imposed is C#, which I know nothing of, while at least I have some hobbyist experience with C++; when asked if I could take some time to familiarise myself with C# I was basically laughed in the face, saying I will learn on the field and at least some of them have some experience with it.
Should I insist to go with C++, or is that an even worse idea in an already fucked up situation?
To clarify for OP, the only time you need this at all is when the object has a reference to something that the garbage collector won't dispose of naturally. Things like an open file stream, db connection, etc.
You won't need to dispose of an object you created if it just has properties and methods
Circular references can also impede garbage collection, don't forget.
And to further clarify, a proper object wrapping a resource like the ones you listed will release them when it is eventually collected, in the finalizer/destructor. However, you can't know when that will happen, so we have IDisposable.Dispose() which can be used to release whatever critical resources the object is holding right away. :)
This is very wrong. Circular references are no problem for the garbage collector at all (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8840567/garbage-collector-and-circular-reference). You basically don't need to worry about manual memory management at all, if you're only dealing with managed code.
I was specifically thinking of circular event handler references, which I know was a thing at some point in the past. If .Net has improved since then, great.