event-handling approach to errors

Henry Spencer henry at utzoo.UUCP
Sat Mar 16 12:51:35 AEST 1985


> If you want to see a reasonably good and complete signal mechanism, look into
> Mesa (a Xerox homegrown language, from the same company that brought you
> SmallTalk).  [It's got lots of good stuff.]

I have read both general descriptions of Mesa and the Mesa manual itself.
I also read an interesting retrospective on the language, which among
other things said (roughly), "the exception mechanism is too complex
and gives far too much freedom; it is terribly easy to hang yourself
(or the next guy who maintains your code) with it, and this happens
too often for comfort".  I confess it didn't sound that bad to me, but
they're the ones with Mesa experience.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry



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