source: doc/theses/andrew_beach_MMath/intro.tex @ 21f2e92

\chapter{Introduction}

% Talk about Cforall and exceptions generally.
This thesis goes over the design and implementation of the exception handling
mechanism (EHM) of
\CFA (pernounced sea-for-all and may be written Cforall or CFA).
Exception handling provides dynamic inter-function control flow.
There are two forms of exception handling covered in this thesis:
termination, which acts as a multi-level return,
and resumption, which is a dynamic function call.
This seperation is uncommon because termination exception handling is so
much more common that it is often assumed.

Termination exception handling allows control to return to any previous
function on the stack directly, skipping any functions between it and the
current function.
\begin{center}
\input{callreturn}
\end{center}

Resumption exception handling calls a function, but asks the functions on the
stack what function that is.
\todo{Add a diagram showing control flow for resumption.}

Although a powerful feature, exception handling tends to be complex to set up
and expensive to use
so they are often limited to unusual or ``exceptional" cases.
The classic example of this is error handling, exceptions can be used to
remove error handling logic from the main execution path and while paying
most of the cost only when the error actually occurs.

% Overview of exceptions in Cforall.
This work describes the design and implementation of the \CFA EHM.
The \CFA EHM implements all of the common exception features (or an
equivalent) found in most other EHMs and adds some features of its own.
The design of all the features had to be adapted to \CFA's feature set as
some of the underlying tools used to implement and express exception handling
in other languages are absent in \CFA.
Still the resulting syntax resembles that of other languages:
\begin{cfa}
try {
        ...
        T * object = malloc(request_size);
        if (!object) {
                throw OutOfMemory{fixed_allocation, request_size};
        }
        ...
} catch (OutOfMemory * error) {
        ...
}
\end{cfa}

% A note that yes, that was a very fast overview.
All the design and implementation of all of \CFA's EHM's features are
described in detail throughout this thesis, whether they are a common feature
or one unique to \CFA.

% The current state of the project and what it contributes.
All of these features have been added to the \CFA implemenation, along with
a suite of test cases as part of this project.
The implementation techniques are generally applicable in other programming
languages and much of the design is as well.
Some parts of the EHM use other features unique to \CFA and these would be
harder to replicate in other programming languages.

% Talk about other programming languages.
Some existing programming languages that include EHMs/exception handling
include C++, Java and Python. All three examples focus on termination
exceptions which unwind the stack as part of the
Exceptions also can replace return codes and return unions.
In functional languages will also sometimes fold exceptions into monads.

The contributions of this work are:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Designing \CFA's exception handling mechanism, adapting designs from
other programming languages and the creation of new features.
\item Implementing stack unwinding and the EHM in \CFA, including updating
the compiler and the run-time environment.
\item Designed and implemented a prototype virtual system.
% I think the virtual system and per-call site default handlers are the only
% "new" features, everything else is a matter of implementation.
\end{enumerate}

\todo{I can't figure out a good lead-in to the overview.}
Covering the existing \CFA features in \autoref{c:existing}.
Then the new features are introduce in \autoref{c:features}, explaining their
usage and design.
That is followed by the implementation of those features in
\autoref{c:implement}.
% Future Work \autoref{c:future}