Memory problems in Root

[jade2]

I’m thinking of using root to collect data in my multi-threaded application. As I investigated this graphical tool, I noticed wikipedia noted this about Root:

Criticisms of ROOT are endless, and include its difficulty for beginners and experts alike, various aspects of its design and implementation, numerous memory handling errors, non-reproducible calculation results, buffer overflow issues, and its overall performance and feel of that of an amateur, student-written piece of software. From time to time these issues are discussed on the ROOT users mailing list.Scientists dissatisfied with ROOT typically manage to work around its flaws with experience due its pervasive nature in particle physics and a lack of any widespread alternative.

Is there any truth to this? If so, is there a list somewhere of these “numerous memory handling errors” and “buffer overflow issues” and work arounds of these problems?

[pcanal]

Hi,

For the most part the wording used in this paragraph in unfair and unsubstantiated. The author of this rant in both uninformed and unhelpful. Several design choices have been made over the years and some of those requires awareness of the documentation and usage rules in order to properly write some of the interfaces. As in any software development there have been deficiencies in the existing code base, and most if not all are being addressed as soon as they are brought to our attention. As C++ is evolving (for example ROOT was started before C++ template or STL containers were in a useable form), we continually improve and update the code base while focussing primary on the actual need of our users.

Cheers,
Philippe.