[Opensim-dev] Error detection when storing an asset

Mon Apr 21 16:47:32 UTC 2014

If throws had file scope and the compiler generated a hard error when you
didn't catch your own throws I'd say there might be a small argument for
the try/retry mechanism, but it is simply subject to abuse, same as
operator overloading.  A good theory, but a bad fact.  Same with most of
the religious wars -- we can look at the results now, from the not too bad
Javascript (LISP Family) to the obscenity which is Java (PL/I family).

I agree that when you have bad code to work with you might have to
compromise, but holding one's nose and dealing with uncaught up-chucks is
not "good coding practice."  It's muddling through when handed crap.

I'm not here to "design the api."  I''m here because I want to use the
product, and I'm finding it very difficult to use.  If Opensim was stable I
wouldn't have bothered to come looking.  I'm still here because --
well.....aren't you going to stop talking about futures and do something
about today?  Like maybe a feature freeze for release, maybe?????

Someone Took over Firestorm about a year ago, and it looks a whole lot
better today for the effort.  I'd like to see the same for Opensim.  What I
see now does not make me feel good about my future writing scripts in the
Metaverse.  Maybe that new company "High Fidelity" will come up with
something...

On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Mike Chase <
mike.chase at alternatemetaverse.com> wrote:

> See below:
>
>
>
> *From:* opensim-dev-bounces at opensimulator.org [mailto:
> opensim-dev-bounces at opensimulator.org] *On Behalf Of *Jim Williams
> *Sent:* Monday, April 21, 2014 11:57 AM
> *To:* opensim-dev at opensimulator.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Opensim-dev] Error detection when storing an asset
>
>
>
> No!  The lower level code should return what happened, and there is
> nothing which is "exceptional" except some children; which is the right way
> to view the notion of exceptions -- dim-witted.  Given that the stupid idea
> was invented, I must admit that sometimes there is no real choice but to
> accept the crappy code and propagate the crap -- but there is no reason to
> do so willingly.  The try/catch scheme is bad practice.  How to deal with
> the crap that is out there is a matter which can be discussed, but not with
> the notion that is was done right to begin with.
>
>
>
> Then design the api to return success/failure as a return result.  Point
> is, you don’t choose to gleefully ignore error details from a lower level.
> I get that you don’t like exceptions.  And that there is long standing
> religious debates on how they should be used.  My point wasn’t so much
> about the mechanism as the approach.  Lower level code returns
> success/failure and upper level code decides what to do.
>
>
>
> It goes along with thinking that objects are somehow special.  Took me
> years to figure out that objects were simply good programming practice with
> a bit of crap tossed in to confuse people.  (BTW-- I worked at Object
> Design.  I know what a C++ object is better than you do.)
>
>
>
> I wouldn’t necessarily make that assumption.  You don’t know what I’ve
> done in my career.   I was a long time user of Object Design though and am
> well aware of the issues it had with exceptions unwinding the stack.   Just
> because C++ exception handling sucked for many years though doesn’t
> necessarily mean exceptions==bad.
>
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> P.S. As Hiro pointed out, I’m not a core member just an interested techie
> with an opinion who is trying to share it.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 11:13 AM, Mike Chase <
> mike.chase at alternatemetaverse.com> wrote:
>
> That’s a shame but I understand.  I don’t understand the resistance to
> what I guess I consider good programming practice because there seems to be
> concern about “fixing” code that might be effected.  IMO lower level code
> should throw exceptions if something exceptional happens and let the upper
> levels decide to retry or report the error.
>
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> *From:* opensim-dev-bounces at opensimulator.org [mailto:
> opensim-dev-bounces at opensimulator.org] *On Behalf Of *Oren Hurvitz
> *Sent:* Monday, April 21, 2014 10:54 AM
> *To:* opensim-dev at opensimulator.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Opensim-dev] Error detection when storing an asset
>
>
>
> James, the only philosophical concern that I've heard is a desire to hide
> errors and present a false facade of 100% success to users. This was
> obfuscated by an attempt to claim that the errors could someday be fixed
> automatically, but that doesn't actually happen in today's OpenSim so it's
> not a valid point. Since I respect my users and value their time I have to
> let them know when I've failed to complete an action that they requested,
> so I reject this approach.
>
> A second possible objection is a practical one: will propagating
> exceptions cause other parts of the code, unrelated to the assets service,
> to fail? I don't know the answer to that, but I still refuse to pretend
> success in cases where I've failed.
>
> For these reasons, I have changed Kitely to propagate exceptions thrown in
> the communications system; it is already done. If this causes problems then
> I will see them and fix them. But in view of the surprising and vigorous
> opposition to this change I will not be contributing it to OpenSim.
>
> Oren
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 5:43 PM, James Stallings II <
> james.stallings at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Parhaps it would be interesting to hear whether Oren has obtained to some
> elegant way of addressing these concerns.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 11:08 PM, Trinity <trinity93 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Im in mels camp on this one.
>
> Trinity Bays
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 4:14 AM, Melanie <melanie at t-data.com> wrote:
>
> These "other places" are what I'm worried about. There are a lot of them
> and each of them would need to have code added. Exception handling code is
> one of the worst types of code because the "try" is a scope, so locals
> devlared in the try, like bool result = MethodToTry(); will have to be
> split up into declaring the bool outside the scope and assigning it inside
> - incredibly ugly for code that wants to be reference and teaching code as
> well as a functioning system.
>
> - Melanie
>
>
> On 19 Apr 2014, at 08:02, Oren Hurvitz <orenh at kitely.com> wrote:
>
> My fix has two parts.
>
> The first is that the Store() operation needs to understand failures
> correctly. There has been a consensus that it should, so I'll add that to
> Git.
>
> The second is that MakeRequest() should propagate exceptions, instead of
> just returning null (which is what it does now). So far there have been 3
> votes for this (me, Mike Chase, and Justin) and 2 against (Melanie, Diva).
> That's very close; does anyone else want to make their position known?
>
> Next, I see that there's confusion in this discussion about what happens
> in Store() if MakeRequest() throws an exception. And the answer is, nothing
> will be different, because Store() already correctly catches exceptions.
> That is precisely how it should work: the low-level communications system
> reports when it has failed, and higher levels (that know the business value
> of the call) decide how to handle it. However, MakeRequest() is called from
> other places as well and they might need to be changed to handle exceptions
> better.
>
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> --
>
> ===================================
>
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> --
>
> Oren Hurvitz
> VP R&D
> Kitely Ltd.
>
> Email: orenh at kitely.com
>
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