Re: How to get nice with GNAT?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2014 05:53:27 -0800 (PST), brbarkstrom@gmail.com wrote:

> Sure, but often enough we add in exceptions after having to respond to an 
> unexpected event.

And this still is a BUG.

An unexpected even means that the system is in an undefined state, there is
nothing you could do with this. All other cases, even when the system
(subsystem actually) gets shut down, restarted etc are actions in response
to some *expected* event. E.g. even memory access violation is an event
expected by the OS process scheduler or debugger etc.

> The addition of the exception comes in maintenance, rather 
> than as result of the design work.

Yes, but that is when the state is expected but undesired. It is not a bug
at the side which raised the exception. It could be a bug on the client's
side, e.g. due to improper usage.

What is usually meant by exceptions being bugs is that the code raises an
exception where some other behavior specified. That is indeed a bug, but it
is not specific to exceptions, like with the example of + used instead of
*. Any wrong behavior is a bug.

The idea that all/most/some bugs should somehow manifest their wrong
behavior in exceptions is dubious.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de