Exceptions' descriptions contain stupid prefix in VAST

Great insight John,

The great part about the 'isNil ifTrue: []' -> 'ifNil:[]' is the completely ridiculous set of consequences to such a benign and expected action.

Kind of like making a trip to the local supermarket whose entrance is wired with explosives. No one can really call you guilty for opening the door.

The point of the story is now when someone asks us to go to the supermarket for them, we kinda expect its wired with explosives and we just like to make very sure what we're being asked to get is really really compelling:)

- Seth

On Sunday, May 12, 2019 at 6:38:54 AM UTC-4, John O'Keefe wrote:

As the guilty party in the 'isNil ifTrue: []' -> 'ifNil: []' debacle, I can attest to the laws of unintended, and unexpected, consequences.

An additional consideration, particularly in regard to exception handling, is that there is a considerable amount of product code that depends on the existing behavior. This means that the change can roll through a lot of other code changes with their own risks.

And then there is the previously mentioned undiscovered consequences in infrequently visited, but important, addons like the WidgetKit products (we have forgotten more than once over the years to audit one or more of these products for the effect of changes).

And lastly, but certainly not finally, there are the subtle differences between platform behaviors. While Windows and Linux get a really good workout simply because we use them every day in development, the same cannot be said for Solaris and AIX.

Like Seth, I learned over the years to keep my hands in my pockets rather than on the keyboard when considering changes.

John

Hi Seth,

thank you very much for letting us understand how you feel and think about changes and what is needed to be sure a change is not only worth it but also the right thing to do.

As I said before, VAST is what it is because this way of working with change leads to great stability, with all its consequences, some of which we might not like. The whole point of my post here was to help me understand if asking you for starting the thought process is worth it. I know my way around it with a simple comment that can be re-appliad with every new version (I've been doing so for a while now) and if you come to the conclusion there is too much of a risk or too little gain in it, that is okay with me.

Maybe someone else wants to comment on why they might face problems if the prefix would be gone. Using your example, an asbsent log entry has the potential to be fatal, of course. That is why I explicitly asked if anybody here is relying on this text.

Have a nice weekend.

Joachim