[mercury-users] io output exceptions

[Fergus Henderson]

On 14-Nov-2002, Michael Day <mikeday at yeslogic.com> wrote:
> 
> Why do the io output predicates throw exceptions instead of returning an
> io__res to indicate error conditions?

(1) I/O errors are rare
(2) Throwing an exception is usually the right action.
(3) Handling an error code from these routines would
    significantly complicate the code in the caller.
    Even a simple "hello world" program would become quite complex.
(4) Because of (3), returning an error code from these
    routines would encourage people to ignore such errors.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne         |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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