Thesis Dissertation "Exception Handling: The Case Against"

It has recently become apparent that only by striving for the utmost simplicity in programming languages can one hope to produce programs which express their semantics clearly. Thus it is essential to examine any new language feature to see if its contribution to ease of expression outweighs its cost in terms of language complexity. This thesis examines exception handling mechanisms in this light. Such mechanisms are included in the programming languages PL/I, CLU and Ada, and extensive proposals have been made by Levin. A l l the mechanisms are "high-level " in the sense that they can be simulated by conventional language features. Their designers offer only the vaguest indication of their range of applicability, and when the motivating examples are re-written without exception handling there i