[Haskell-cafe] New Hackage category: Error Handling

[Henning Thielemann]

On Sat, 5 Dec 2009, Henning Thielemann wrote:

> On Sun, 6 Dec 2009, Michael Snoyman wrote:
>
>> I think there are plenty of examples like web servers. A text editor with 
>> plugins? I
>> don't want to lose three hours worth of work just because some plugin 
>> wasn't written
>> correctly. For many classes of programs, the distinction between error and 
>> exception is
>> not only blurred, it's fully irrelevant. Harping on people every time they 
>> use error in
>> the "wrong" sense seems unhelpful.
>> 
>> Hope my commenting on this subject doesn't become my own form of 
>> *pedantry*.
>
> In an earlier thread I have explained that one can consider a software 
> architecture as divided into levels. What is an error in one level (text 
> editor plugin, web server thread, operating system process) is an exception 
> in the next higher level (text editor, web server, shell respectively). This 
> doesn't reduce the importance to distinguish between errors and exceptions 
> within one level. All approaches so far that I have seen in Haskell just mix 
> exceptions and errors in an arbitrary way.


I have just written more details on this topic:
    http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Error_vs._Exception