On 2010-09-08, Steven D'Aprano <st...@remove-this-cybersource.com.au> wrote: > On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:35:45 -0700, Phlip wrote: > >> Exceptions are very dangerous by themselves, because if you don't trap >> them just right they can cause side-effects. > > Huh? > > If you don't trap them just right, they cause a stack trace,
Not always. That is the effect of not trapping them at all. However, you can trap them incorrectly -- which can result in hard-to-track down problems. The main example of this is a "bare except" clause that not only catches and handles the "expected" exception but also catches (and mishandles/ignores) an unexpected one. > which is a side-effect I suppose. But it's an *intended* side-effect, > since the alternative would be a core dump (or worse, an incorrect > program that *doesn't* crash). This is a good thing! -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! -- I have seen the at FUN -- gmail.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list