On 6/6/22 12:15 PM, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
On Monday, 6 June 2022 at 15:54:16 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
If it's an expected part of the sorting algorithm that it *may fail to
sort*, then that's not an Error, that's an Exception.
No, it is not expected. Let me rewrite my answer to Sebastiaan to fit
with the sort scenario:
For instance, you may have a formally verified sort function, but it is
too slow. So you optimize one selected bottle neck, but that cannot be
verified, because verification is hard. That specific unverified
softspot is guarded by an assert. The compiler may remove it or not.
Your shipped product fails, because the hard to read optimization wasn't
perfect. So you trap the thrown assert and call the reference
implementation instead.
The cool thing with actors/tasks is that you can make them as small and
targeted and revert to fallbacks if they fail.
(Assuming 100% @safe code.)
Then that's part of the algorithm. You can use an Exception, and then
handle the exception by calling the real sort. If in the future, you
decide that it can properly sort with that improvement, you remove the
Exception.
That is different from e.g. using a proven algorithm, like quicksort,
but failing to implement it properly.
-Steve
