🚀 go-pugleaf

even though this is the response to an email message, i think it
should be given wider circulation.

   Date: Tue, 4 Jun 91 08:13:31 +0200
   From: Michael Dahmen <dahmen%ecrc.de>

   > why in the world do they use the names block/3 and exit_block/1?
   > why not the much more customary catch and throw?

   Maybe because they don't known or don't like LISP ... :-)

isn't this a wonderful motivation for making a proposal for an iso
standard?  gives me shivers of awe thinking about the deliberations of
that august standards body working on my behalf and on the behalf of
all the other little people in the world of prolog users.

i suppose that they would object to naming something unwind_protect on
the same grounds.

i understand doing something differently in a new language because it
was done poorly before.  but i have a hard time understanding a change
in the name _only_ in order to be different, especially when the
previous implementation worked pretty well.  this all sounds pretty
childish.

block and exit_block sound like they refer to blocks.  blocks are very
commonly (from algol onward) to refer to static reference scopes, not
installing handlers with dynamic extent.

how about handle_exception and raise_exception, or handle_event,
raise_event or any number of _descriptive_ names.


--

		When in doubt, take the trick.

				Hoyle & Hoyle (quoting Hoyle)