[clean-list] My very first program crashes!

[F.S.A.Zuurbier@inter.nl.net]

Fergus wrote:

"(...) it's possible to do a better job than the current Clean implementation. (...)  it's possible for the implementation to catch stack overflow at runtime, and to issue a nicer error message than just "Stack Fault". 
(...)

Mercury: 'This may have been caused by a stack overflow, due to unbounded recursion.'

(...) the last line may help a lot, particularly for newcomers. (...) By plugging the features of a rival implementation, maybe I can spur the Clean team into handling this particular issue better"

I could not agree more. Functional programming in general has quite a way to go to become accepted, so it is useful to make sure that newcomers are not scared away the first day. Moreover, the Clean system was designed for educational purposes also, so why not let the compiler/run time system do some of the education by issuing better error messages?

Regards Erik Zuurbier