[Python-ideas] Type hints for functions with side-effects and for functions raising exceptions

[Juancarlo Añez]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 11:32 PM Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 2:27 PM Juancarlo Añez <apalala at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Then, if exceptions are going to be part of a type, there should be a
> way to express the semantics of them (like in Eiffel), so
> stack.pop();stack.push(x) doesn't have to catch StackFullException.
> >
>
> That assumes atomicity. If you want an atomic "replace top of stack"
> that can never raise StackFullException, it's probably best to express
> it as stack.replacetop(x) rather than having something that might be
> interrupted.
>

Ah! What to do with an exception in a concurrent context? Abort, or retry
after a while?


> People do dumb things with exceptions, yes. Why does this mean that
> they are bad? I don't understand this. Exception handling (and stack
> unwinding) gives an easy and clear way to refactor code without having
> to daisychain error handling everywhere. How is throwing that away
> going to help people write better code?
>

For programs that are recursive or multi-layered, exceptions are a clean
and efficient way to unwind.

This PEG parser generator I wrote was made possible because Python
exceptions are semantically clean and very efficient:
https://github.com/neogeny/TatSu/blob/master/tatsu/contexts.py


> But then, Golang also decided that Unicode wasn't necessary, and we
> should all deal with UTF-8 encoded byte sequences instead of text
> strings, so I'm fairly sure there are no ten foot barge poles long
> enough for me to touch it with. There are languages that have problems
> because of history (*cough*JavaScript*cough*), but for a new language
> to make multiple poor decisions just means it's one to avoid.
>

The quest for a programming language in which _"anyone"_ can program,
_without_ making mistakes, has never ended, and probably never will.

"Alexa! Please write the software for a new Internet email system that
overcomes the limitations of the current one!"


Sometimes staying away is not an option.

-- 
Juancarlo *Añez*
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