From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 23 Feb 2002 18:51:32 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 23 Feb 2002 18:51:22 -0500 Received: from wsip68-15-8-100.sd.sd.cox.net ([68.15.8.100]:43649 "EHLO gnuppy.monkey.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 23 Feb 2002 18:51:07 -0500 Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 15:50:51 -0800 To: Pete Zaitcev Cc: Keith Owens , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [RFC] [PATCH] C exceptions in kernel Message-ID: <20020223235051.GA2412@gnuppy.monkey.org> In-Reply-To: <200202231011.g1NABaU10984@devserv.devel.redhat.com> <25097.1014467212@ocs3.intra.ocs.com.au> <20020223075002.A23666@devserv.devel.redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020223075002.A23666@devserv.devel.redhat.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.27i From: Bill Huey Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sat, Feb 23, 2002 at 07:50:02AM -0500, Pete Zaitcev wrote: > Personally, I have no problem handling current practices. > But I may see the point of the guy with the try/catch patch. > Do not make me to defend him though. I am trying to learn > is those exceptions are actually helpful. BTW, we all know > where they come from (all of Cutler's NT is written that way), > but let it not cloud our judgement. Uh, that's probably not right. If I've been told/remember correctly, it's a technique that certain old school mainframe OSes use to implement sophisticate fault recovery of various sorts. As you know, one basically rewinds to the original point before the block is called so that you can recover/continue from it. It's not clear if an OS like Linux could really benefit from it since everything that is so inheritently hotwired in the kernel, nor is it clear how something like exceptions would conceptual map onto that kind of system. Maybe DB/FS stuff would be a good of that stuff if you have a condition that prevents a write to a disk (etc.l.) and because they are data structure intensive systems. But what about the TCP/IP stack ? or things in the bottom half ? Those things are a bit more sticky and seem less compatible with exceptions it seems. bill