It took me so long to read this on-and-off that I forgot who linked me to it, but thanks to whoever it was. This is a very interesting read from a clearly experienced language designer who show how deep language design should be. I have come to really dislike how errors are handled in current languages, and how the crappy language support leads to ignoring errors.

It took me so long to read this on-and-off that I forgot who linked me to it, but thanks to whoever it was. This is a very interesting read from a clearly experienced language designer who show how deep language design should be. I have come to really dislike how errors are handled in current languages, and how the crappy language support leads to ignoring errors.

The distinction between recoverable and non-recoverable errors seems to be what Java tried for, but taken to such an extreme that a great compiler is necessary, much like earlier compiler advances allowed RISC chips. Having static analysis that can remove most run-time checks does make new approaches feasible.

I wish they had managed the nullable type, I've been wanting a good non-null type for a long time.
http://joeduffyblog.com/2016/02/07/the-error-model/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#Security weirdness of the day: I followed a link to #Instagram, and it told me they'd noticed an unusual login. Now I hardly ever log in to Instagram, so I imagine any login would be tagged as unusual. But this login - which blocked me from viewing a public post until I answered whether it was me or not - was from two months ago. I have no idea if I logged in then. I might have, for whatever reason, but who remembers where they log in for several months? Not I. The follow-up page had me change my password, without any other kind of challenge. I got a mail afterwards, but seriously, that's some weird shit.
Read more

If only the sun flares in my photos were this impressive.

Image
If only the sun flares in my photos were this impressive. Originally shared by Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD) A Solar Filament Erupts Image Credit: NASA 's GSFC, SDO AIA Team https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180916.html What's happened to our Sun? Nothing very unusual -- it just threw a filament. Toward the middle of 2012, a long standing solar filament suddenly erupted into space producing an energetic Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The filament had been held up for days by the Sun's ever changing magnetic field and the timing of the eruption was unexpected. Watched closely by the Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, the resulting explosion shot electrons and ions into the Solar System, some of which arrived at Earth three days later and impacted Earth's magnetosphere, causing visible aurorae. Loops of plasma surrounding an active region can be seen above the erupting filament in the featured ultraviolet image. Although the Sun is now in a relatively inactive state ...
Read more