I find my code is full of shared_ptrs and weak_ptrs, i literally use NO raw pointers, and i find myself in doubt: Is this good practice?
I've googled this abit, and i see some people swearing by smart-pointers everywhere, while others take a more subtle approach.
In the current iteration of my resourcemanager i create all my resources and then store shared_ptrs in a container, this makes sense ofcourse.
But what if i need my game-entities to have access to their parent game state: I can't pass a shared_ptr because that would give me a circular reference (the gamestate manages all entities with shared_ptrs i should say.), atm i'm just passing a weak_ptr and then lock()'ing it when i need to access the gamestate. Is this overkill, should i just use a raw pointer?
I'm concerned with the fact that the above approach means alot of temporaty shared_ptrs are created and destroyed each frame, how big is the overhead?
Some people seem to think that shared_ptr to some object, denounces "ownership" of that object, and that shared_ptrs should only be passed around when the intention is to change ownership of the object pointed to?
Also, will i be burned at the stake for typedefing the pointers? My code looks like a cross-section of times square at midnight with all the ugly template syntax.
Edit:
I felt so dirty when i put together the constructor for my rendercomponent:
I'm not even sure the above code isn't causing leaks or other nasty stuff, but it works, i just can't stand looking at it :-)Code:RenderComponent(const std::string &p_PropertyName, boost::weak_ptr<Entity> p_Owner) : Component(p_PropertyName, p_Owner), m_Target(p_Owner.lock()->GetGameState().lock()->GetWindow())