[PD] What exactly is a "stack overflow" ?

[Andy Farnell]

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:08:20 +0100
Derek Holzer <derek at umatic.nl> wrote:

> Sending a "bang" message to the [until] object, created without an 
> argument saying how many times the bang should be done, will give 
> roughly the same effect--

If only!

Objects that overflow the stack cause an exception, most of which trap
nicely and you get a gentle report not to do that again.

Sending an unqualified  bang to [until] will have you reaching for power
switch because it enters a very tight loop with no exit condition and no
hope of even seeing a SIGINT.

I know we like to pretend this is "feature", but isn't it time to treat it
as a bug?



-- 
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