🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike Griebling (grieblm@trt.allied.com) wrote:

: Why do you insist that exceptions are critical and not having them is
: a serious flaw?  I come from a real-time embedded system world where
: Ada is used regularly.  The chief concern there is that systems operate
: reliably.  Yet, when exceptions are introduced (ie., you are trying to
: anticipate the unexpected -- literally impossible) the system reliability
: is put in question since exceptions (if no handler is present) can crash
: the system.  In a real-time system this is a definite no-no.  What is
: desired is that the system degrade gracefully or attempt to restart.  This
: function can be easily accomplished without resorting to the complexity
: inherent with exceptions. 

Agreed.


There is a Phd thesis  :
	Andrew Black
	Exception Handling : a case against
	University of Washington

The thesis is quite old. It cover many of the exception handling
mechanism found in languages of days gone by -- and have been
reintroduced in other languages. He found that all the examples given for
exceptional handling by its advocates could be rewritten in a 
clearer style ( ie. easier to determine the control flow ) 
using existing programming elements. His conclusion that language
designers should not introduce exception handling mechanisms
into programming languages. 

-- Whitney