Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1992 17:58:23 +0100
Message-Id: <199211031658.AA25518@nora.hd.uib.no>
Sender: sigmund@nora.hd.uib.no
To: msc@Athena.MIT.EDU
From: sigmund@nora.hd.uib.no
Subject: Failing with Dignity

Gentlepersons,

What kind of failure handling are we planning on Athena Muse 2?  How should
the program react when the system can't provide requested memory?  What
happens when the File Manager is on strike, when the media source goes
crazy, or when a necessary resource simply isn't there?

Peoples' failure handling generally falls into three categories as I can
think of:
        (1) Plan for failure as part of normal program execution.
        (2) Escape from the current routine into an exception handler.
        (3) Failure will almost surely never happen here.

MacApp has a quite elaborate scheme for (2), which I would like to support
as much as possible.  It is so flexible that I doubt there will be any
problems to acommodate AM2 code, but just in case, if anybody is working on
this topic or having nightmares about it, please let me know.

        Hilsen
        Sigmund

PS  Have you voted yet?