Pgagmas (was Re: Small poll)

[Joe Armstrong]

Well ...

	a + 42 

IS legal code, it might be part of a test suit to test that the
run-time exception handling stuff works.

We need pragmas :-)

	a + 42  generates a hard compiler error (not like to today)
	        and refuses to compile ie your (3)

	PRAGMA deliberate_error
	    a + 42 
	END

	works like (1)

This is what I called "intentionality" in my thesis :-) - the thing is
you don't know why the programmer wrote 42+a - there are two cases

	a) The programmer knew it was an error, or,
	b) It was an error

Adding a pragma allows the best of both worlds, :-)

/DrJoe :-)





On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Kostis Sagonas wrote:

> I was wondering whether the Erlang user community would care
> to comment on the following:
> 
> In a function like:
> 
> 	test(A) ->
> 	    a + 42.
> 
> which is either crap (arguably) or a typo (A vs a), how many
> Erlang users:
> 
>  1. Are content with the current situation where the compiler
> 	happily compiles this program
>  2. Would like to see a warning, but a .beam file generated
> 	nevetheless
>  3. Would prefer if the compiler in R10 refused to compile it
> 
> Notice I am not talking about any serious attempt to static
> type checking, but for really "basic" checks.
> 
> Kostis.
>