Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!m2c!ulowell!apollo!wyant
From: wyant@apollo.uucp (Geoffrey Wyant)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Proposal for Exceptions for C++
Message-ID: <3b4d5415.13255@apollo.uucp>
Date: 6 Apr 88 16:08:00 GMT
References: <22999@bbn.COM>
Reply-To: wyant@apollo.UUCP (Geoffrey Wyant)
Distribution: na
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 22
Keywords: Avalon, C++, exceptions


  I have two problems with the exception mechanisms proposed so
far.  First and foremost, most of them don't seem to have been
well thoughtout semantically.  The majority of them seem to think
up some syntax for raising and catching exceptions and supply a
few trivial examples to illustrate the semantics.  Nobody has really
said what an exception is, is it a globally defined indentifier,
an object or what ?  Secondly, or exception handlers statically
or dynamically bound ?  Designing a good exception mechanism is
difficult and touches on a large number of semantic issues.  

  The other problem I have with the proposals is that these ill-defined
exceptions aren't being treated first class entities in the language.
Why should I be able to subclass exceptions.  Its very usefull to do.
This enables you to organize and catagorize exceptions.

  Well, enough ramblings and rantings.

        -- Geoff
-- 

    UUCP: ...{yale,mit-eddie}!apollo!wyant