Reverse Complement utility, Bio::Alg, return value problem

[Steven E. Brenner]

> We've actually discussed this a few months ago, and at theat time agreed to 
> use carp().  (SteveC agrees -- just talked to him on BioMOO).
> I think that's the best of both worlds, and it's in the spirit of Perl:
> ``Always use -w. Always  use -w'' ;-)  [-w displays all the warnings 
> that a Perl script causes]. Things would be even better if Perl has
> a built-in option that makes carp()s lethal if the user so desires --
> I think I heard about this a few weeks ago.

  Yes, I remember discussing this and recall the agreement.

  However, SteveC's comments have re-opened the issue for me.  The reason
is that while the carp()'s are visible to the user, there is no way for
the program to do anything about them.  That is, if something illegal
happens, the user (if they're sitting at the console) will get a warning,
but the program can't take any corrective action.

  I'm not sure relying on features which won't exist until 5.006 at the
earliest is a good idea.

  Maybe the old return value idea (suggested by SteveC), combined with
carps and croaks (depending upon severity) is the best approach.  This, of
course, means that one can't do the sort of repeated operations which
would be desirable and which are possible if the self object is returned.


> SteveB: I suggest you check out at the Perl conference what ppl think is 
> the best way to go -re- exception handling.. 

  Will try.  But I'm probably only going to be there briefly.  I'm really
busy, as I will be away from around 22 Aug - 25 Sep.

Steve