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From: Mike_Spreitzer.PARC@xerox.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula3
Subject: Re: running out of memory
Message-ID: <91Feb12.162424pst.34078@alpha.xerox.com>
Date: 12 Feb 91 21:06:08 GMT
Lines: 14
In-Reply-To: "<9102120059.AA15796@jumbo.pa.dec.com>"
To: m3
X-Ns-Transport-Id: 0000AA005D3910E22B6C
Cc: Mike_Spreitzer.PARC@xerox.com

Installing global failure-handlers will solve some problems, but how does it
solve the following?

Imagine a bitmap editor program.  It allows the user to open multiple windows
on bitmaps from multiple files.  At one point, with some windows already open,
a user asks to open a new window on the 23 megabyte contents of a particular
file.  Wouldn't it be nice if the editor could say something like
	"I'm sorry, I can't now edit a new bitmap that big",
rather than
	"Memory exhausted, saving all files and exiting..."
?  If we can only register procedures to do a little work before the editor
aborts, I don't see a good way to get the desired behavior.

Mike