Re: Exception misinformation

Hans_L wrote:

Hi Lukas, Lukas Smith wrote:

This looks like a bad example.

hey I wasnt the one who brought up this example! :-) its just that alot of comments on the list go like: its part of php5 so it cant hurt. or look this guy wrote that in his book. or in this case: this extension throws an exception.

while its good to learn from how other people do things, they shouldnt be our sole source of inspiration of how we do things. in this particular case the example David brought up it was not even proving the point he was trying to make.

It sounds like this time you should re-read David's post. His statement was that exceptions are already a part of PHP5 and his example was that SQLite will throw an exception if you try to connect & it fails. Ergo, people using SQLite in PHP5 need to know how to catch exceptions.

It sounded to me that he was suggesting that since PHP5 extensions use exceptions and that using them for any type of error handling is fine. Anyways I will take this opportunity to clarify that I am not against PHP5 or exceptions. I however dont see PHP5 immediatly replacing PHP4 for the large bulk of our developers and users. I also dont feel that exceptions should be used for anything but errors in the enviornment that php runs in.

It puzzles me that you criticize me for not listening to anyone else's opinions and then also criticize me for suggesting that we use what we've learned from others as the sole source of inspiration. (I assume that's your suggestion, as I'm the one who said that George's book was a good guide for exception use.)

In case my use of the word "sole" didnt make it clear what I said. here is the full quote again: "while its good to learn from how other people do things, they shouldnt be our sole source of inspiration of how we do things. in this particular case the example David brought up it was not even proving the point he was trying to make." Another try to bring across my message: Just because other people do things a certain way does not mean we have to do things in the same way. However other peoples ways of doing things do serve as an inspiration. They should just not be our sole soruce of inspiration. Frequently in this thread argument were presented saying: If we do things this way we will be all alone, because nobody else is going to be equally stupid/reluctant to change. I take offense at this type of reasoning and I was expressing this.

I learn (almost?) everything I know from others; however, learning from others does not mean validating the fears or general uncertainty of those who have no experience with something. I want these learning discussions to be actually based on experience and fact, not wild hypotheticals, that's all. In the end, I hope that these discussions result in some good recommendations and documentation. Informed people make better decisions.

I learn alot from people. But I dont do what other people do without applying my own thougts and experiences. For someone that doesnt like wild hypothies you seem to be willing to hypothesize alot about what people have personal experience with and what they dont (damn you for using this complicated words!). I can claim to have played with exceptions a fair amount, but I have not yet build a full 3-6 month project using them. I have however had the opportunity to discuss exceptions with alot of people at the various conferences I have recently attended. So if you want to be harsh you could claim I am a new born baby which has been screaming for 5 minute because something is hurting. You claim its the fact that I have to breath, to me it feels like the after effects of a shot of cocain. Heh .. ok this analogy sucks too (especially since I have spend more time than 5 minutes with exceptions) .. but since it might be able to gather a smirk by some of the readers I will leave it in. Anyways it has become apparent that we are not moving forward with any of our arguments as I fail to see the obvious idioticy that my arguments seem to convey. At the same time you seem unable to make anything but mad ramblings from my statements. And unfortunately it seems that the same issues arise for the other people on each side of the argument. From the undecided few people have spoken up (like Alan did). So in conclusion I have presented my argument, you have presented yours. Not using exceptions at all is the status quo. I think we will certainly agree to change this status quo for PHP5. Now the question is to define the limits. I think you can give your argument a nice boost by writing up a thoughtful RFC to regulate the use of exceptions. I may do the same for mine. regards, Lukas Smith smith@backendmedia.com _______________________________ BackendMedia www.backendmedia.com berlin@backendmedia.com Linn Zwoch Smith GbR Pariser Str. 44 D-10707 Berlin Tel +49 30 83 22 50 00 Fax +49 30 83 22 50 07