When an exception is thrown and the application doesn't handle it, the default handler outputs the error message to stdout. This is wrong. It should go to stderr. That's exactly what stderr's there for.
Walter once claimed that he doesn't really like stderr, apparently because versions of Windows prior to 2000 don't provide a means of redirecting it. I have debunked this excuse at least three times over:
1. By pointing out that the spec states that "the program gracefully exits through the default error handler with an appropriate message". Redirecting error output when the user didn't ask for it, be it to a file, a filter or a program such as Doxygen, is most ungraceful.
2. By stating that whether to redirect errors along with normal output should be up to the user, not the programmer, and certainly not the creator of the language that the program is written in.
3. By writing Rederr and releasing it on digitalmars.D.announce:
http://www.digitalmars.com/drn-bin/wwwnews?digitalmars.D.announce/1518
The fix was written ages ago:
http://www.digitalmars.com/drn-bin/wwwnews?digitalmars.D.bugs/4368
Comment #1 by braddr — 2006-03-23T01:23:07Z
Sorry, choice of stdout vs stderr for the last ditch catch isnt:
Critical crashes, loss of data, severe memory leak
P1 so bad that an update needs to happen immediately; i.e. it makes D unusable
I've lowered it back to normal and P2.
I do agree that stderr is more appropriate.
Comment #2 by smjg — 2006-03-23T04:22:06Z
Sorry, I was thinking of it as silent generation of bad code, which Walter once suggested should count as critical. Should've finished reading that discussion I guess....
(In reply to comment #3)
> May I propose an alternative meaning for P1 - namely "The fix has been written
> and should be folded in right now"?
No reply => going for it. Time's too short to waste any more.
Comment #6 by bugzilla — 2007-03-29T19:04:03Z
Fixed DMD 1.010
Comment #7 by github-bugzilla — 2012-05-07T12:29:27Z