RE: Scriptometer: measuring the ease of SOP (Script Oriented Programming) of programming languages

["Anton van Straaten" <address@hidden>]

> This above would *not* be valid in C where problems cause the whole
> program to go wild (ever heard of forking to enable segfault recovery! :)

In off-list discussion it was mentioned that it's possible to recover from
segfaults in programs like Microsoft Word by invoking a debugger, skipping a
bit past the current instruction, and continuing, thus giving enough time to
save a document, for example.  In a case like that, an exception that wasn't
handled well enough is causing a serious problem that might be at least
partially recoverable otherwise...

It reminds me of a lesson from Douglas Adam's "Mostly Harmless", in which
Tricia starts out with this perspective:

"Besides, she told herself, taking a deep breath, if life had taught her
anything it was this: Never go back for your bag."

...based on having previously missed out on an opportunity to leave Earth
and tour the universe, because of having gone back for her bag.  So, wiser
now, she goes to an important TV anchorperson interview without her bag, but
of course has left her contact lenses in the bag, can't read the
teleprompter, and doesn't get the job.  Her conclusion is "if there was one
thing life had taught her, it was that there are some times when you do not
go back for your bag and other times when you do. It had yet to teach her to
distinguish between the two types of occasions."

The parallels to exception handling are so close, the hairs on my neck are
standing up... ;)

Anton