Re: [RFC PATCH 1/1] Add a type for errors

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Oct 3, 2024, 16:05 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqwmipi342.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAPig+cQjk5_VJ-LNc9Hx3Q4n6H5bgg5cAztWhFpuweG8wFTjMw@mail.gmail.com>

Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> Your proposal uses Rust as a model to justify the API choice in this
> RFC, but Phillip's point was that -- despite being perfectly suitable
> in Rust -- it is _not_ ergonomic in C.
> ...
> That's why I said in my original response that I didn't understand
> your response to Phillip. You seem to be using a non-justification
> ("other programmers suffer, so Git programmers can suffer too") as a
> justification for a non-ergonomic design.

The statement may be a bit too harsh, as some may not even realize that they are suffering anymore, after prolonged exposure to these idioms, just like C folks consider it is a fact of life that they have to carefully manage their pointers and the memory they point at.

I do agree that "return value with more details in the out parameter whose address is supplied by the caller" is a convention that is easier to grok when written in C.

Thanks.