RE: Ending a program from within a procedure

> From: Paul Morgan
> 
> A subprocedure has no business controlling the flow of anything that
calls
> it.

I mildly disagree.  I believe there are two kinds of errors: expected
and unexpected.  Expected errors are recoverable conditions that a
calling procedure might be able to rectify.  Unexpected errors signal
horrible fatal conditions (like a master file not found) and cannot be
recovered from.  Adding code to test for these conditions is unnecessary
and counter-productive.

Instead, I register a "top level" entry point.  This is where any
unexpected errors should go.  When an error occurs, I simply send an
exception message to that level.  It automatically cleans up the stack
and allows me to notify the operator of the condition.  This is really
useful in situations where the procedure wouldn't normally return an
error.

Joe