🚀 go-pugleaf

Raymond Fergerson (rwf@camis.stanford.edu) wrote:
|> My understanding is that the current ANSI draft specifies a 
|> number of standard exceptions which form an
|> inheritance forest, but not a tree:  there is no common root.
|> I also heard that this choice was the subject of much debate at
|> the meetings.  Could someone please present a summary of the 
|> arguments both for and against using a tree structure for the 
|> standard exception hierarcy.  Did Stroustrup express an opinion 
|> on this subject, and, if so, which way did he lean? Was multiple 
|> inheritance in the use of exceptions the big issue?

As far as I can see, all of the exceptions thrown by the standard
library derive from the class exception, so they form a tree, not a
forest.

This seems logical to me; the isA relationship definitly holds, and
there is a fundamental relationship (as opposed to the case of an Object
class, from which everything derives).  I would even suggest that unless
there were very strong motives for doing otherwise, applications base
their exception hierarchy on the one used by the standard library.
-- 
James Kanze           (+33) 88 14 49 00          email: kanze@gabi-soft.fr
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