Sundanda, et al
<< But a longer answer should be "you can't, but Rebol should". >>
But is that feasible, and what would we have to give up in return?
My thinking is more in line with Joel's post on this, though we may be
talking along slightly different lines. I think the concept of a "source
line" isn't nearly as meaningful in REBOL as in most other languages, but
the more hints it can give us about the *context* in which an error
occurred, the better. That's tricky too, because of our ability to create
anonymous functions, rename, rebind, and, basically, create an entirely new
system, on the fly.
I think that REBOL gives us the tools (try, catch, disarm, error?, etc.) we
need to get the job done ourselves. They might be improved over time, but
adding "error handling" is up to us. How much we add, and how we add it,
will depend on the needs of each project. There are those that will add
handlers around every piece of code that could possibly trigger an error,
and there will be those that are happy to let things run until a errors pop
up and then put traps just around those sections. Some will build extensive
infrastructures based on exception handling models in other languages, or
Design by Contract idioms, and some will just say "if error? try [x] [print
{Error!}]".
In a distributed system, whether on the same machine or across the net, many
different models will be needed. How do we test and debug these systems, not
to mention simpler systems, effectively? Those are the problems I want Carl
and the team to think deeply about. I think REBOL allows, if not forces, us
to think in different terms at many different levels.
If it were trivial for RT to add more context information for errors, and no
other side effects came about because of it, I don't think anyone would
complain. We'd just wonder why they didn't do it already. :\
I have lots of "mental baggage" based on how I've done development in the
past, and occasional longings for familiar features and models, but I'm
learning (slowly) to step back and think about whether those things are
really important, or if they only seem that way because they're comfortable.
Carl has given us lots of familiar "road signs" to help us ease into REBOL
as a language, but what really excites me is what happens when I ignore
them. :)
--Gregg
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