From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-Id: <200305151234.h4FCYA505978@augusta.math.psu.edu>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] exception handling caused the Ariane 5 rocket accident
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 May 2003 09:21:55 GMT."
             <3EC2D828.7000204@null.net>
From: Dan Cross <cross@math.psu.edu>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 08:34:10 -0400
Topicbox-Message-UUID: ac83da3a-eacb-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025

Actually, the problem was that they assumed they could use a piece of
software from Ariane-4 on Ariane-5 without modification.  Bad
assumption.

Exception handling is interesting, and potentially useful, because it
allows one to scope error recovery in an essentially dynamic way.  But
the ugly fact is that it's often abused and made to look like a
glorified goto with a side effect.  When used by a competent programmer,
it's fine; when used by the average programmer, it's a disaster waiting
to happen because, frankly, the average programmer isn't disciplined
enough to use the mechanism appropriately.

I guess that, as other's have said, it boils down to the programmer.
Rob Pike or Russ Cox can get away with building clean code that doesn't
use exceptions because they're virtuosos.  Doug Gwyn can get away with
using exceptions because he's a virtuoso.  The average programmer is
not a virtuoso, and more often than not messes up either way.

	- Dan C.