From: bouncer@dev.null   
      
   Martin B. wrote:   
      
   > Should my "assertions" (quotes deliberate) dump core? Certainly!   
   > They *should*. Whether they *actually* do, or I throw a logical   
   > error instead, is based upon customer expectations and what the app   
   > does.   
   >   
   > To give you a real real world example: A code base I worked upon   
   > (Windows) wouldn't even deliberatley dump core on access violations   
   > (NULLptr access etc.). It used the Windows sepcific mechanism to   
   > turn those into exceptions, caught them by `catch(...)` and tried a   
   > controlled shutdown of the system. This worked 90% of the time, 9,9%   
   > of the time the process crashed anyway and 0,1% of the time really   
   > weird things happened. Had they dumped core always, this would have   
   > meant that a major part of the 90% incidents would have meant   
   > damaged hardware equipment and significant additional cost to the   
   > customers.   
   >   
   > Was this system not designed well enough? Maybe. But it *worked*   
   > well enough to be economically viable.   
      
   In my opinion, there is nothing inherently wrong with initiating a   
   "controlled shutdown" when a program discovers a logic error.  Such a   
   controlled shutdown should try to emit a diagnostic, and could attempt   
   to record some of the program's state - which can be helpful when   
   trying to figure out happened, or to recover some data that would   
   otherwise be lost.  As long as the user is cleary informed about the   
   program's failure, and it does not attempt to muddle on, I'd say that   
   this is perfectly reasonable behavior.   
      
   Whether or not an exception should be used to transfer control to the   
   point where the "controlled shutdown" is initiated, is another matter.   
   Throwing an exception triggers stack unwinding, which could easily   
   make things worse than they already were when the logic error was   
   first detected.  A direct call to the controlled shutdown routine   
   probably has a higher chance of succeeding in trying to limit the   
   damage.   
      
   - Wil   
      
      
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