Error handling (was Re: "nan" v. try-catch for arithmetic)

[Paul Dupuis]

On 6/26/2014 12:23 PM, Peter Haworth wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 8:22 AM, Richard Gaskin <ambassador at fourthworld.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Is there a simple rule that would allow scripters to understand when
>> try-catch is necessary and when the result should be checked instead?
>>
>> If not, should there be?
>>
>> Or perhaps better yet, could error handling be made uniform, maybe as part
>> of the Open Language initiative?  If so, what would it look like?
>>
> Personally, I think error handling should be made uniform.  As you say,
> sometimes try/catch is required, other times the result must be checked and
> sometimes "it" must be checked.  Then there's the different ways errors are
> reported by the database library commands.
>

Try - Catch functionally is present many programming languages for a
very different purpose than general error reporting.

Language commands and functions that can detect, trap, and report an
error, should return appropriate error information that the programmer
can check for. LC generally does this via "the result", the returned
value of a function itself (an empty return value from some functions
can equal an error condition, or a function may return an error
message), or "it" - and among these, improved consistency would be a
nice improvement.

However, no language can really prevent programming error or error based
on unexpected inputs - i.e. add "fred" to tVar - that results in an
execution error.

Try/Catch serves as a tool in modern programming languages to allow a
programmer to catch any UNEXPECTED execution error and handle it in some
controlled way.

Both mechanism can be used together. In the example below, if tInput
contained text ("fred") rather than a number or if either "someFunction"
or "someCommand return errors, the entire block of code has a graceful exit.

try
 add tInput  to tVar
 put someFuntion(tVar) into tVar2
 if tVar2 is empty throw error
 someCommand tVar2
 if the result begins with "error" then throw error
catch tError
 -- controlled exit here
end try