Exceptional Situations in Javascript

# P T Withington (18 years ago)

Was any consideration given to adding the ability to handle
exceptions in Javascript the way they are handled in [Lisp](http:// www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Exceptional-Situations-1990.html)?

In particular, I really miss the ability to handle an exception in
the exception context (as opposed to only after the stack has unwound
to a try block). Compared to the DOM level 2 event handling,
Javascript exception handling seems weak.

Was any consideration given to adding the ability to handle  
exceptions in Javascript the way they are handled in [Lisp](http:// 
www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Exceptional-Situations-1990.html)?

In particular, I really miss the ability to handle an exception in  
the exception context (as opposed to only after the stack has unwound  
to a try block).  Compared to the DOM level 2 event handling,  
Javascript exception handling seems weak.

# Brendan Eich (18 years ago)

That ship sailed with Edition 3, sorry. The Java precedent weighed
heavily on TG1 and we have never revisited. I wasn't involved much in
ES3 (1998, mozilla.org creation), but I remember that we knew about
the alternative approach, both from Lisp and from some ex-PARC Mesa
folks at Netscape at the time. Shaver may remember more.

Apart from the history, we haven't heard this request enough to pull
our focus. Apart from TG1, the idea comes up in the context of
debugger design, where it can be addressed outside of the language.

That ship sailed with Edition 3, sorry. The Java precedent weighed  
heavily on TG1 and we have never revisited. I wasn't involved much in  
ES3 (1998, mozilla.org creation), but I remember that we knew about  
the alternative approach, both from Lisp and from some ex-PARC Mesa  
folks at Netscape at the time. Shaver may remember more.

Apart from the history, we haven't heard this request enough to pull  
our focus. Apart from TG1, the idea comes up in the context of  
debugger design, where it can be addressed outside of the language.

/be

On Mar 27, 2007, at 3:51 AM, P T Withington wrote:

> Was any consideration given to adding the ability to handle
> exceptions in Javascript the way they are handled in [Lisp](http://
> www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Exceptional-Situations-1990.html)?
>
> In particular, I really miss the ability to handle an exception in
> the exception context (as opposed to only after the stack has unwound
> to a try block).  Compared to the DOM level 2 event handling,
> Javascript exception handling seems weak.
>
>
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