- From: Ave Wrigley <ave.wrigley@itn.co.uk>
- Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 13:40:22 +0100
Ian Hickson wrote: > > The silent dropping of errors was one of the main catalysts to the > > success > > of the Web, IMHO. > > > > One of WHATWG's design principles is based on this: > > > > # Users should not be exposed to authoring errors > > # > > # Specifications must specify exact error recovery behaviour for each > > # possible error scenario. Error handling should for the most part be > > # defined in terms of graceful error recovery (as in CSS), rather than > > # obvious and catastrophic failure (as in XML). > > -- http://www.w3.org/2004/04/webapps-cdf-ws/papers/opera.html > > I hate to admit it, but you have a very good point. I guess I'm put off > by the idea due to being a programmer at heart ;) My only point on this would be that an invalid regex error is very likely to be a "development time" rather than a "run time" error as it is not related to the (possibly variable) user input. The opportunity for graceful recovery from errors that made the web so successful depends on the ability to DWIM in most circumstances. This is not the case here; it is almost never the case for invalid regexes that to DWIM is to do nothing (IMHO!). If an invalid regex throws an exception, this should never be seen by an end user, as it should always be picked up by a developer. It is not dissimilar to the behaviour for invalid javascript in <script> tags. Ave. -- Ave Wrigley, Head of Development, ITN New Media 200 Grays Inn Rd, Tel: +44-20-7430-4719 London WC1X 8XZ, Mob: +44-7713-986247 United Kingdom mailto:ave.wrigley at itn.co.uk
Received on Monday, 23 August 2004 05:40:22 UTC