ensure_started

[Ulf Wiger]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2003, Chris Pressey wrote:

>I was also operating under the assumption that the
>following would, generally speaking, fail:
>
>  list_to_pid("<0.400.0>") ! foo.
>
>Trying it from the shell, it doesn't, foo just goes into a
>black hole presumably.  (now I better understand why some
>people use the phrase "send and pray")

However, reg_name ! foo _will_ fail if there is no process
registered as 'reg_name'.

>I guess the lesson to take from this is that it's good
>coding style to always use a finite timeout when waiting
>for a reply from something you're not linked to, because
>that reply simply may never show up no matter how carefully
>you code the server... ?

Oh yes.  (:

Actually, monitors take care of the cases where the server
dies before responding, but there are other cases where a
timeout is really needed. Deadlocks due to rare combinations
of events is one such occasion. Finite timeouts give a
rather clear indication that something is not quite right.

/Uffe
-- 
Ulf Wiger, Senior Specialist,
   / / /   Architecture & Design of Carrier-Class Software
  / / /    Strategic Product & System Management
 / / /     Ericsson AB, Connectivity and Control Nodes