Re: Exception Handling

[Goodenough@sei.cmu.edu (John Goodenough)]

In article <3238B024.794B@maths.usyd.edu.au>, Robbie Gates writes:

|> > >>Where did the concept of exception handling originate ? For example,
|> > >>which languages were first to support this, or which papers first
|> > >>proposed exception handling ?

I believe the first paper to propose the use of the term and to give a
comprehensive discussion of the concept was, well, the following:

    Goodenough, J. B. Exception handling: issues and a proposed notation. CACM
    17, 12 (Dec. 1975), 683-696.

which was based on a paper and presentation given at the Second ACM Symposium
on Principles of Programming Languages in January 1975.  PL/I was the first
widely used language to support exception conditions (called ON conditions),
so someone on the PL/I design team deserves credit for giving high level
language support to the concept.  The notion itself is supported by a variety
of other language mechanisms, as is discussed in the above paper.

There have subsequently been a number of papers and theses on the concept.

John B. Goodenough					Goodenough@sei.cmu.edu
Software Engineering Institute				412-268-6391