Re: [TCLCORE] TIP#239 Try/Catch/Finally syntax

[Magentus <mag...@gm...>]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:23:35 +0000, 
"Donal K. Fellows" <don...@ma...> wrote:

> Andreas Leitgeb wrote:
>> Even  {CHILDKILLED * SIGSEGV *} may have its use. The errorCodes
>> thrown from core appear to have been carefully crafted to be
>> reasonably glob-able.  At this point in time, glob appears like
>> the perfect hammer for the nail, but nails are likely going to
>> change when programmers get more into the habit of creating new
>> errorCodes for their applications, and introducing ambiguities,
>> that could have been avoided by list patterns in the first place.
> So... you're rejecting an admittedly perfect solution for a much more
> complex one because of a possible theoretical problem in the future?
> Words fail me.

I don't think it's been admitted to be perfect.  I believe one of the
the key phrases was "reasonably glob-able", and the other key concept
was that just because it ALMOST fits the present carefully crafted
nails, doesn't mean it will fit the less carefully crafted nails that
will start to appear once the idea of using errorcodes catches on.

Glob on a list is flawed.  It's as simple as that.  And it astounds me
that you can defend the idea of matching a list with at least one piece
of arbitrary text, with glob matching that has no regard for word
boundaries.


Andreas Leitgeb:
> Anyway, all my arguments have been said. Seems like I just failed to
> prevent what I consider a bad thing from happening to Tcl. Alas. <EOD>

While sometimes I go off on a tangent that even I don't expect to be
followed on, and I freely admit that, a good useful implementation of
this will be immediately practical and useful.  We're ALL doing the
kinds of things this command is designed to make easier.  We ALL want
to see good error handling.  We ALL want to be able to get rid of those
annoying and hard to follow if..elseif and catch+switch blocks.  And
[try] has the opportunity to do that in a clean way.

But the way it's being dumbed down to mere triviality, I can't agree
more on this particular sentiment.


-- 
Fredderic

Debian/unstable (LC#384816) on i686 2.6.23-z2 2007 (up 49 days,  7:01)