Peter Scott wrote:
> At 02:37 PM 8/23/00 -0700, Glenn Linderman wrote:
> > > This means that die can be trapped by catch, and
> > > that throw can be trapped by eval.
> >
> >Blecch. Orthogonality of the mechanisms is easier to understand than funny
> >rules, special cases, and syntactical magic.
>
> But that *is* being orthogonal.
It is? What is? You made me resort to my dictionaries, both of which define
the use of the word orthogonal as "at right angles" or "having a dot product of
zero". In other words, and the way I've always heard programmers use the word
orthogonal, "an independent variable", or "completely independent of each
other".
So to restate what I meant, without the use of the word orthogonal:
Blecch. Using independent mechanisms for fatal and non-fatal error handling is
easier to understand than a single mechanism, with funny rules, special cases,
and syntactical magic in place to handle the differences.
> That's how Error.pm implemented it and it
> makes perfect sense. Nothing in RFC 88 precludes die and throw from
> sharing the same underlying code, or simlarly catch/eval. I think it
> should make it clear that they *are* the same thing.
I'd appreciate your description of what you meant by orthogonal, it certainly
doesn't fit my definition, or that of my dictionaries, as far as I understand
mathematics. This dissertation on the meaning of the word orthogonal is, of
course, somewhat off-topic, except to the extent that it impacts our
communications.
On the other hand, you've made it very clear that you prefer to see fatal error
trapping and non-fatal error handling done with the same mechanism, whether the
word orthogonal has anything to do with it or not.
We disagree.
While nothing in RFC 88 precludes die and throw from sharing the same underlying
code, or similarly catch/eval, doing so isn't a good idea: it forces people that
want to use exceptions for non-fatal error handling to suddenly have to also
handle fatal errors as well.
--
Glenn
=====
There are two kinds of people, those
who finish what they start, and so
on... -- Robert Byrne
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