Looking at this from a Rusty point of view, ownership rules make this possible. When this function creates but button, it owns it. To mutate it (addLabel/setAlignment/sizeToFit), it has to own it. But for it to continue to exist after the function returns, something else has to own it. Therefore, Window::addSubview has to take ownership of the button, and so, has to come last:
fn make_button(window: &mut Window) {
let mut button = Button::create();
button.set_label("test");
button.set_alignment(Alignment::TopLeft);
button.size_to_fit();
window.add_subview(button);
}
In that situation, the button's destructor absolutely could delete itself.
I know it's a toy example, but an exception in such a method doesn't seem like something that can be handled/retried like an IO problem. Any such exception should probably be handled by simply tearing down the app anyway.
You could make this general idea work, though, by adding a "button.commit();" at the end of the function. The button destructor would remove itself unless commit() had been called -- basically an ad-hoc transaction on the level of a single button.