On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 12:46 AM, Jon Ribbens <jon+use...@unequivocal.co.uk> wrote: > On 2016-03-22, Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: >> The first step in any program is to write it in the very simplest way >> possible. That usually means ignoring all error handling. And yes, >> this is true in EVERY language - C, PHP, Pike, DeScribe Macro >> Language, you name it. > > I'm afraid I have to say I think this is absolutely terrible advice. > If you write code in a language that does not have exceptions (e.g. C) > and get it working with no error handling, the chances are > approximately 100% that it will stay that way and be shipped without > error handling, until that lack causes someone a major problem.
There are languages in which it's inadvisable. But can you honestly say that you've never written a C program with even a single error check omitted, first time? (The trivial case of having never written a C program counts only because smart people leave C to other people.) And PHP's strpos function is not an abomination because it's impossible to distinguish FALSE from 0, but because *most* PHP programs are written without the mandatory check for FALSE after every strpos. So yes, it does happen, a lot. The difference with languages like Python is that this actually *is* good advice in Python. Due to a mistake in editing, the parentheses around the "true in EVERY language" sentence were lost, which would have made it clearer that this is in two distinct parts: 1) This IS what happens, whatever language you use 2) This is the right thing to do in Python, but not always elsewhere. My apologies for the confusion. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
