On 09/03/2018 02:49 AM, Paul Backus wrote:
> On Monday, 3 September 2018 at 04:49:40 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
>> Note that the above has *nothing* to do with retrieving a value. Retrieving a value is merely used by the implementation as a trigger to lazily decide whether the caller wants `foo` or `tryFoo`. Going out of scope without making the choice could also be considered another trigger point. In fact, this "out-of-scope without being checked" could even be used as an additional trigger for even the non-void variety. After all: what if an error occurs, but the caller checks *neither* value nor hasValue?
> 
> The thing is, triggering on explicit access lets you handle errors lazily, whereas triggering at the end of the scope forces you to handle them eagerly.
> 
> Vladimir's `Success` type is, essentially, a way for a function to send something back up the stack that its caller is forced to acknowledge.

Yes, that's correct.

> Throwing an exception is *also* a way for a function to send something back up the stack that its caller is forced to acknowledge.

Yes, but it's heavier-weight AND prevents the callee from being nothrow.

> but when it comes to overall control-flow semantics, they are basically equivalent.

Control-flow semantics, sure, but as I pointed out in my previous sentence, there's more relevant things involved here than just control flow semantics.

> By contrast, a function that returns an `Expected!T` does *not* force its caller to acknowledge it. If an error occurs, and the caller never checks value or hasValue...nothing happens.

That's called squelching an error, and its EXACTLY the same problem as using non-Expect return values to indicate errors. I'd regard that as very notable hole in any Expected design as it breaks one of the core points of using Expect vs returning plain error codes: The user can still accidentally (or deliberately) squelch an error.

To clarify: If the caller never checks value or hasValue, that does NOT mean the caller has carefully and deliberately chosen to disregard the error. It *could* mean that, but it could also mean they simply messed up. Deliberately squeching an error should NEVER be implicit, it should always require something like:

catch(...) { /+ Do nothing +/ }

or

if(!x.hasValue) { /+ Do nothing +/ }

> That's what being lazy means: if you never open the box, it doesn't matter whether the cat is alive or dead.

I don't see the laziness here as being the core point. The laziness is the "how", not the raison d'etre. The laziness is simply a tool being used to achieve the real goals of:

- Allowing the caller the decide between foo/tryFoo versions without the API duplication.

- Decreasing exception-related overhead and increasing utility of nothrow.

> 
> Having one specialization be lazy and one be eager would be a nightmare for anyone trying to use the library.

Vladimir's Success vs Expect!T is NOT an example of "eager vs lazy". In BOTH cases, the callee treats errors lazily. And in BOTH cases, the caller (or whomever the caller passes it off to) is expected to, at some point, make a deliberate, explicit choice between "handle or throw". And as I said before, allowing the caller to accidentally (or implicitly) squelch the error is a fundamental breakage in the whole point behind Except.

On Monday, 3 September 2018 at 21:55:57 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
>> By contrast, a function that returns an `Expected!T` does *not* force its caller to acknowledge it. If an error occurs, and the caller never checks value or hasValue...nothing happens.
>
> That's called squelching an error, and its EXACTLY the same problem as using non-Expect return values to indicate errors. I'd regard that as very notable hole in any Expected design as it breaks one of the core points of using Expect vs returning plain error codes: The user can still accidentally (or deliberately) squelch an error.

If you receive an `Expected!T`, you have the following choices available to you:

1. Handle the success case locally, and the failure case non-locally (i.e. use `value` directly).
2. Handle both the success case and the failure case locally (i.e. check `hasValue`).
3. Handle both the success case and the failure case non-locally (i.e., pass the `Expected!T` along untouched).

The difference between `Expected`, on the one hand, and both `Success` and plain-old exceptions, on the other, is that `Expected` gives you choice #3, and the other two don't.

Why is choice #3 important? Because it doesn't branch. Both success and failure follow the same code path. That makes functions that use `Expected` much easier to compose than ones that throw exceptions. For example, if you throw an exception in the middle of a range pipeline, the entire thing comes crashing down--but an `Expected!T` will pass right through, and let you handle it when it comes out the other end.

Now, you will probably object--and rightly so--that there is an implicit assumption being made here, which is that "handle the success case" is equivalent to "use the return value." Clearly, this equivalence does not always hold in the presence of side effects. That's why `Expected!void` is so problematic. Nevertheless, I think it holds in enough cases to make `Expected` useful in practice. In particular, it is guaranteed to hold for strongly-pure functions, and will also hold for functions whose side effects are visible only through the return value (e.g., `readln`).

> I don't see the laziness here as being the core point. The laziness is the "how", not the raison d'etre. The laziness is simply a tool being used to achieve the real goals of:
>
> - Allowing the caller the decide between foo/tryFoo versions without the API duplication.
>
> - Decreasing exception-related overhead and increasing utility of nothrow.

The laziness (on the part of the caller, i.e., the code that *receives* the `Expected!T`) is important because it's what makes choice #3 possible. It's an essential part of the design.

On Monday, 3 September 2018 at 13:00:05 UTC, aliak wrote:
> This would be great to have in D.

Indeed, if it's really going into C++ D needs to think about how to handle that anyway if it wants to offer C++ ABI interfacing.

> Swift [0] has something similar, and personally after using it for a few years, I can say that I've seen next to no unhandled exception errors in iOS code at least.

Thanks, didn't know that Swift is already using something like this.

On Sunday, 2 September 2018 at 06:59:20 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
> expectations is an error-handling library that lets you bundle exceptions together with return values. It is based on Rust's Result<T, E> [1] and C++'s proposed std::expected. [2] If you're not familiar with those, Andrei's NDC Oslo talk, "Expect the Expected" [3], explains the advantages of this approach to error handling in considerable detail.

expectations 0.2.0 is now available, with the following updates
- `hasValue`, `value`, and `exception` now work for const and immutable `Expected` objects.
- `Expected!void` has been removed.
- `map` and `andThen` can now be partially applied to functions, "lifting" them into the Expected monad.
- The documentation has been improved based on the feedback given in this thread.

On 09/04/2018 12:05 AM, Paul Backus wrote:
> On Monday, 3 September 2018 at 21:55:57 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
>>> By contrast, a function that returns an `Expected!T` does *not* force its caller to acknowledge it. If an error occurs, and the caller never checks value or hasValue...nothing happens.
>>
>> That's called squelching an error, and its EXACTLY the same problem as using non-Expect return values to indicate errors. I'd regard that as very notable hole in any Expected design as it breaks one of the core points of using Expect vs returning plain error codes: The user can still accidentally (or deliberately) squelch an error.
> 
> If you receive an `Expected!T`, you have the following choices available to you:
> 
> 1. Handle the success case locally, and the failure case non-locally (i.e. use `value` directly).
> 2. Handle both the success case and the failure case locally (i.e. check `hasValue`).
> 3. Handle both the success case and the failure case non-locally (i.e., pass the `Expected!T` along untouched).
> 
> The difference between `Expected`, on the one hand, and both `Success` and plain-old exceptions, on the other, is that `Expected` gives you choice #3, and the other two don't.
> 

I think you may be getting hung up on a certain particular detail of Vladimir's exact "draft" implementation of Success, whereas I'm focusing more on Success's more general point of "Once the object is no longer around, guarantee the error doesn't get implicitly squelched."

You're right that, *in the draft implementation as-is*, it can be awkward for the caller to then pass the Success along to some other code (another function call, or something higher up the stack). *Although*, still not impossible. So #3 still isn't eliminated, it's simply made awkward...

But reference counting would be enough to fix that. (Or a compiler-supported custom datatype that's automatically pass-by-moving, but that's of course not something D has).

And you haven't actually directly addressed the issue I've raised about failing to guarantee errors aren't implicitly squelched.

> Why is choice #3 important? Because it doesn't branch. Both success and failure follow the same code path. That makes functions that use `Expected` much easier to compose than ones that throw exceptions. For example, if you throw an exception in the middle of a range pipeline, the entire thing comes crashing down--but an `Expected!T` will pass right through, and let you handle it when it comes out the other end.

Right. And as described above, I'm advocating an approach that preserves that (even for void) while *also* improving Expect so it can not *merely* improve things "in most cases", but would actually *guarantee* errors are not implicitly squelched in ALL cases where Expect!whatever is used.

>> I don't see the laziness here as being the core point. The laziness is the "how", not the raison d'etre. The laziness is simply a tool being used to achieve the real goals of:
>>
>> - Allowing the caller the decide between foo/tryFoo versions without the API duplication.
>>
>> - Decreasing exception-related overhead and increasing utility of nothrow.
> 
> The laziness (on the part of the caller, i.e., the code that *receives* the `Expected!T`) is important because it's what makes choice #3 possible. It's an essential part of the design.

Again, what I'm proposing still preserves that.

On Tuesday, 4 September 2018 at 22:08:48 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
> I think you may be getting hung up on a certain particular detail of Vladimir's exact "draft" implementation of Success, whereas I'm focusing more on Success's more general point of "Once the object is no longer around, guarantee the error doesn't get implicitly squelched."
>
> You're right that, *in the draft implementation as-is*, it can be awkward for the caller to then pass the Success along to some other code (another function call, or something higher up the stack). *Although*, still not impossible. So #3 still isn't eliminated, it's simply made awkward...
>
> But reference counting would be enough to fix that. (Or a compiler-supported custom datatype that's automatically pass-by-moving, but that's of course not something D has).

Ok, I think I understand what you're proposing now--basically, something comparable to Rust's `#[must_use]` attribute. Thanks for taking the time to explain. I agree that that would be a nice feature for `Expected` to have.

The thing is, D already has a mechanism for signalling failures that can't be ignored: exceptions. So adding that functionality to `Expected`, while convenient, doesn't actually let you accomplish anything you couldn't already.

Now, if it were easy to implement, then sure, no problem. But it's not. Reference counting in particular is so problematic that Walter and Andrei have proposed *multiple* new language features (copy constructors, __mutable) to make it work cleanly. As things currently stand, making `Expected` reference-counted would mean at the very least giving up compatibility with `const` and `immutable`, which makes `Expected` a worse fit for strongly-pure functions (currently its *best* use-case).

It's a shame that D forces us to make this tradeoff, but given the options in front of me, I would rather have `Expected` shine in the area where it has a comparative advantage, even if that means making it less universally-applicable as an error-handling mechanism.