Proposal: Extensible exceptions

[Isaac Dupree]

Henning Thielemann wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 6 Jul 2008, David Menendez wrote:
> 
>>> data DivideByZero = DivideByZero deriving (Show, Typeable)
> 
> Maybe I annoy you with my distinction of errors and exceptions, but I 
> consider DivideByZero a bad example for an exception, because it is more 
> an error (I see it is used in the extensible exception paper anyway). A 
> division by zero is not a problem that comes from the outside world like 
> 'file does not exist'. In contrast to that, it's absolutely predictable: 
> It occurs whenever you divide by zero. I'd thus call it a programming 
> error.

Indeed, we should give some thought to which exceptions are programming 
errors (divide by zero, assert-failure, error, but not Neil Mitchell's 
abort...) and put them in a category.  We should give some thought to 
the hierarchy of exceptions we're establishing!  I have some trouble 
seeing from the patches what the hierarchy of exceptions will be; Ian 
(or someone), could you describe what the current proposal is for that 
hierarchy? (if it exists yet)

-Isaac