[erlang-questions] Erlang and Akka, The Sequel

Fred Hebert mononcqc@REDACTED
Wed Apr 1 20:23:57 CEST 2015


On 03/31, Youngkin, Rich wrote:
>>    try
>>        {ok, Cs} = adventure:collect_coins(),
>>        Res = lists:flatmap(fun(Coins) ->
>>            {ok, Val} = adventure:buy_treasure(Coins),
>>            Val
>>        end, Cs),
>>    of
>>        SuccessValue ->
>>            %% Do something like continue to next challenge
>>    catch
>>        Type:Reason ->
>>            %% Do something like maybe repeat the previous challenge
>>    end.
>> ...
>>    try
>>        lists:flatmap(fun(Coins) -> adventure:buy_treasure(Coins) end,
>>                      adventure:collect_coins())
>>    of
>>        SuccessValue -> % Keep going
>>    catch
>>        _:_ -> % alt path
>>    end
>>
>
>I don't see a difference between the previous 2 Erlang implementations. Can
>you elaborate?
>

One of them matches on `{ok, Value}' to cause a failure, which makes the 
assumption 'bad' cases are returned as `undefined' or `{ok, Error}'. In 
the latter case it is expected that the called code raises exceptions 
when something goes wrong.

They're two fundamentally different approaches to designing your 
interface. They can, of course, be mixed together depending on the 
importance (or frequency) of the error.

Regards,
Fred.



More information about the erlang-questions mailing list