[e-lang] Notes from latest Joe-E meeting

[Tyler Close]

On 4/26/07, Mark Miller <erights at gmail.com> wrote:
> - There is an attack with try-finally and VirtualMachineError.
>      try {
>         ... X ...
>      } catch (final Error reason) {
>        throw JoeE.abort(reason);
>      } finally {
>         ... Y ...
>      }

We could change the boilerplate for a finally clause to:

    try {
        ...
    } catch (final Error e) {
        while (true) { try { JoeE.abort(e); break; } catch (Throwable t) {} }
        throw e;
    } finally {
        ...
    }

This is weird but is still better than banning finally clauses
entirely. We could then document that this insanity would go away if
Java supported Keepers and point to a JSR.

The JLS doesn't give us any guarantees on what can be relied upon when
an Error is thrown, but I suspect the above code is safe. Anyone have
any expectations otherwise?

Tyler

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