[m-dev.] delaying compile errors until runtime

[schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU]

On 22 Dec, Fergus Henderson wrote:
> It might be nice to add an option to the Mercury compiler
> that would cause it to go ahead and generate executable
> code anyway, even if compile errors were found.  The generated
> code would then raise exceptions at runtime, if/when it was
> executed.

This is a good idea.  I think it might be a bit better, though,
to provide some finer-grain mechanism than a compiler switch.  Perhaps
a pragma to turn this on and off, so one could bracket experimental or
half-coded parts of ones code with these pragmas, and still have the
compiler refuse to compile bits of code that are expected to be
correct.  I know:  this is my usual reaction that this sort of
information (that parts of the program is expected to have errors)
belongs in the source code, not in the makefile.  A compiler switch
could have the effect of a pragma at the start of the file, so you
could support both the pragma and switch.

I know a pragma would be considerably harder to implement than just a
switch.


-- 
Peter Schachte                | I have made this a rather long letter
mailto:pets at cs.mu.OZ.AU       | because I haven't had time to make it
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~pets/ | shorter.
PGP: finger pets at 128.250.37.3 |     -- Blaise Pascal 

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