Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:56:33 -0300
On Saturday, 29 August 2026 23:48:51 Brasilia Standard Time Yongwei Wu via
Std-Proposals wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Aug 2026 at 03:31, Tiago Freire <tmiguelf_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> > That’s a very extremist view. I’m not here to change the mind of
> > fundamentalists in the exception handling wars.
>
> I do not see how it is extremist to refute a completely wrong argument.
Correct, in principle, if we were talking about an argument.
But what Tiago was talking about was neither an argument nor wrong. He was
calling it an extremist view (not argument) when you said:
>>> People giving the comment above should be banned from reviewing C++ code.
This is an opinion, a view. And yes, extremist. I presume, from your reply,
you were reacting to his comment that in some places one should just throw
std::exception itself instead of a new class. I don't frankly understand how
Tiago thinks that will help instead of making the problem worse, but that's
not the point: the point is that your reaction was to deny such comments would
ever be helpful and that people who held such views should not be allowed to
review C++ code. What you should have done was to ask "why do you think that
will help? If something catches std::exception, a new class derived from
std::exception will be caught; if nothing does, then throwing it is no
different than throwing a new class anyway."
> People may choose not to use exceptions for various reasons. I have
> experienced enough such projects. It is one thing to say we do not like
> exceptions, but it is another to make wrong statements about how to use
> exceptions.
You've argued correctly about the hierarchy. But the conclusion that people
who've misunderstood the principle should be banned is the extremist view.
People should be taught. And if they don't want to learn the intricacies of
exception throwing and catching -- which is their choice -- they should remove
themselves from reviewing exceptions. The rest of C++ is still within their
expertise.
Std-Proposals wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Aug 2026 at 03:31, Tiago Freire <tmiguelf_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> > That’s a very extremist view. I’m not here to change the mind of
> > fundamentalists in the exception handling wars.
>
> I do not see how it is extremist to refute a completely wrong argument.
Correct, in principle, if we were talking about an argument.
But what Tiago was talking about was neither an argument nor wrong. He was
calling it an extremist view (not argument) when you said:
>>> People giving the comment above should be banned from reviewing C++ code.
This is an opinion, a view. And yes, extremist. I presume, from your reply,
you were reacting to his comment that in some places one should just throw
std::exception itself instead of a new class. I don't frankly understand how
Tiago thinks that will help instead of making the problem worse, but that's
not the point: the point is that your reaction was to deny such comments would
ever be helpful and that people who held such views should not be allowed to
review C++ code. What you should have done was to ask "why do you think that
will help? If something catches std::exception, a new class derived from
std::exception will be caught; if nothing does, then throwing it is no
different than throwing a new class anyway."
> People may choose not to use exceptions for various reasons. I have
> experienced enough such projects. It is one thing to say we do not like
> exceptions, but it is another to make wrong statements about how to use
> exceptions.
You've argued correctly about the hierarchy. But the conclusion that people
who've misunderstood the principle should be banned is the extremist view.
People should be taught. And if they don't want to learn the intricacies of
exception throwing and catching -- which is their choice -- they should remove
themselves from reviewing exceptions. The rest of C++ is still within their
expertise.
-- Thiago Macieira - thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org Principal Engineer - Intel Data Center - Platform & Sys. Eng.
Received on 2026-08-30 11:56:48