What is the reason for “while(true) { Thread.Sleep }”?

Question

I sometimes encounter code in the following form:

while (true) {
  //do something
  Thread.Sleep(1000);
}

I was wondering if this is considered

Answer 1

If you use while(true) you have no programmatic means of ending the loop from outside the loop.

I'd prefer, at least, a while(mySingletonValue) which would allow us to switch the loop as needed.

An additional approach would be to remove the functional behavior from the looping behavior. Your loop my still be infinite but it calls a function defined elsewhere. Therefore the looping behavior is completely isolated to what is being executed by the loop:

while(GetMySingletonValue())
{
    someFunction();
}

In this way your singleton controls the looping behavior entirely.