From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Subject: Re: contracted exceptions
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 19:14:03 -0500
Date: 2007-06-08T19:14:03-05:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <f4cr8j$mb8$1@jacob-sparre.dk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: m2k5ue8dhk.fsf@mac.com
"Simon Wright" <simon.j.wright@mac.com> wrote in message
news:m2k5ue8dhk.fsf@mac.com...
...
> If our fielded application raises an unhandled exception it's going to
> be the result of a design error or at least a design shortcoming. We
> will log the exception traceback and stop all application processing;
> the system is in an unstable state. The operator can then restart and
> (if we are lucky) send us the fault log for debugging. If we're
> unlucky they'll just complain about us to each other and our
> reputation is shot.
>
> The operator has no access to or interest in a debugger.
And that's true for virtually all applications. [Aside: didn't we have this
discussion a few months ago??] Only the original developer(s) care about why
something failed; other users (the vast majority) only care that it failed.
Even users of a compiler don't want an internal error to throw them into a
debugger: what value could that have? (As for the original developer(s),
they can only use a debugger if they can reproduce the actual error -- and
the ability to do that is rare. It's actually better to have the partial
information from a good logging mechanism, because at least some fraction of
the time the error will be obvious and fixable. And the information doesn't
have to be that partial; I recall that the error dump on the Pascal compiler
we used in college actually dumped all of the local variables in its
traceback on a failure. That compiler's facilities were used as the model
for error handling in Janus/Ada [although not the local variable dumps...too
much overhead])
Randy.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2007-06-09 0:14 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 69+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2007-06-06 21:33 Reconsidering assignment Maciej Sobczak
2007-06-06 22:52 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-07 7:15 ` Maciej Sobczak
2007-06-07 16:34 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-07 7:10 ` Stefan Lucks
2007-06-07 7:32 ` Maciej Sobczak
2007-06-07 11:11 ` Stefan Lucks
2007-06-07 16:28 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-07 9:27 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-07 16:54 ` contracted exceptions (was Re: Reconsidering assignment) Ray Blaak
2007-06-07 20:04 ` contracted exceptions Robert A Duff
2007-06-07 21:11 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-07 23:44 ` Robert A Duff
2007-06-08 2:19 ` Randy Brukardt
2007-06-08 7:39 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-08 8:53 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-08 12:08 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-08 17:31 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-08 18:00 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-08 18:20 ` Georg Bauhaus
2007-06-08 18:56 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-08 19:15 ` Simon Wright
2007-06-09 0:14 ` Randy Brukardt [this message]
2007-06-09 2:44 ` Larry Kilgallen
2007-06-09 8:21 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-09 12:32 ` Simon Wright
2007-06-09 18:38 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-09 21:04 ` Simon Wright
2007-06-10 9:21 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-10 11:49 ` Simon Wright
2007-06-10 15:20 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-11 4:13 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-11 7:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-11 17:06 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-11 19:57 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-10 18:14 ` Georg Bauhaus
2007-06-10 18:12 ` Georg Bauhaus
2007-06-11 7:55 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-11 14:15 ` Bob Spooner
2007-06-11 15:14 ` Georg Bauhaus
2007-06-11 15:20 ` (see below)
2007-06-11 16:39 ` Georg Bauhaus
2007-06-11 19:50 ` Simon Wright
2007-06-08 11:26 ` Martin Krischik
2007-06-08 12:02 ` Robert A Duff
2007-06-08 11:22 ` contracted exceptions (was Re: Reconsidering assignment) Martin Krischik
2007-06-08 17:44 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-08 12:10 ` contracted exceptions Robert A Duff
2007-06-08 15:56 ` Stefan Lucks
2007-06-08 20:27 ` Pascal Obry
2007-06-09 0:19 ` Randy Brukardt
2007-06-09 18:04 ` Robert A Duff
2007-06-09 18:37 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-09 20:43 ` Robert A Duff
2007-06-10 9:21 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-11 19:18 ` Randy Brukardt
2007-06-12 6:55 ` Jean-Pierre Rosen
2007-06-08 17:40 ` Ray Blaak
2007-06-09 18:14 ` Robert A Duff
2007-06-08 19:18 ` Simon Wright
2007-06-09 22:37 ` Reconsidering assignment Maciej Sobczak
2007-06-10 9:21 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-11 9:04 ` Maciej Sobczak
2007-06-11 13:09 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-11 18:57 ` Randy Brukardt
2007-06-11 21:12 ` Maciej Sobczak
2007-06-12 8:31 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2007-06-12 9:31 ` Georg Bauhaus
2007-06-12 10:03 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
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