failing gracefully

redpill me on the programming concept of ``failing gracefully''

Well, a graceful exit (or graceful handling) is a simple programming idiom wherein a program detects a serious error condition and ``exits gracefully'' in a controlled manner as a result

People often say that in case of a bug the program should exit gracefully. I instead think that this is about as bad as crashing - something that could be prevented with dependent types.

In the http://ai.neocities.org/MindBoot.html of the first working artificial intelligence programs -- which use concepts to think in English and sometimes Russian -- the otherwise alphabetical MindBoot sequence starts with the English word "ERROR". The first working AI software "fails gracefully" by including the word "ERROR" in any misconceived thought, so that the AI mind http://ai.neocities.org/maintainer.html in charge of troubleshooting and debugging the mission-critical AI installation will recognize immediately that something has gone wrong in the "Psy" conceptual array. Upshot: "failing gracefully" is ultra-important to AI sysadmins and AI Mind Maintainers.

>>4
I have tried conversing with your AI and it seems to not respond to the input.

Gracefully means sending full trace to your bugtracker, so you can reproduce and fix the bug.

>>6
is that a potential violation of privacy?

privacy

What a quaint notion.

>>8
this is a quaint board, after all

>>5

I have tried conversing with your AI and it seems to not respond to the input.

http://ai.neocities.org/FirstWorkingAGI.html -- requires Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE).

>>10
Any plan to port it to firefox?

ban that demented old spammer already

>>12
I'm afraid. If you ban Arthur, he will set fire to your house.