Re: [Caml-list] [OSR] Exceptionless error management, take 2

["Yaron Minsky" <yminsky@gmail.com>]

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Something about this whole error-handling proposal confuses me.  Here's my
concern: I can see 3 approaches, all having to do with what goes in the 'b
slot in the ('a,'b) status type:

   1. Use different, wholly incompatible types in 'b.  This allows you to
   put useful information into the signature of each error-producing function,
   but basically requires individual handling of each error.  No monadic magic
   and no conversion to exceptions is possible, and each error must be handled
   individually.  It's more explicit and more verbose.
   2. Use the same type in 'b everywhere.  There's no extra explicitness
   here, and I don't actually see any advantage over just using exceptions.
   3. Use different but compatible types, e.g., polymorphic variants.
   Then you get both explicitness and the chance to use monadic or other tricks
   to join together the errors at the type level.  That has some clear
   advantages (the type system can infer for you the ser of all possible error
   messages), but we've found it leads to some sticky type error messages in
   some cases.

So, I understand why someone would try (1) or (3), but (2) seems utterly
pointless to me.  The proposal seems to be aiming at (1), but then there's
all this talk of monads which doesn't seem to fit (1).

Am I missing something?

y

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