[boost] Re: exception context

From: Alisdair Meredith (alisdair.meredith_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-03-19 07:38:53

Trevor Taylor wrote:

> As a software user I am frequently frustrated by "an error occurred"
> like failure messages. As a developer I know that the software *knows*
> exactly what failed, why, and exactly what it was doing at the time, but
> doesn't pass any of this information on.

Alexei Alexandrescu gave a very good sussion on this very topic at last
year's ACCU conference.  The main thrust of his argument was to make
error messages useful to users of the software, rather than try to
provide extra context for error-handlers (this should already be part of
the library interface, using exception translation if necessary)

> I would love boost to provide an exception class/framework/something
> with this capability to encourage collection of context information,
> which would make problem diagnosis so much easier.

Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to evolve an appropriate
framework out of this myself yet, and Andrei's scheme for once seemed to
rely on a compiler-trick too far!  I'm all for stealing some-one else's
hard work <g>

> Perhaps I could relate some of my experience and put some ideas up
> for discussion?

I'd certainly be interested.

-- 
AlisdairM