Provide a version of openConnection that doesn't throw an exception

[mightybyte]

I have an application where sometimes I expect the connection to not be available. It would be nice to have a function that returns a Maybe or Either instead of throwing an exception and printing an error message to the screen.

[istathar]

@mightybyte I had a look. My initial reaction was "sure", although I'd prefer to make a bigger change and smash the API in the process (if there are other things that need fixing that badly).

As I poked around, however, I realized that changing it this way just means me putting try or catch in there and then changing the signature to :: IO (Either e a) (or similar, whatever, ok), but which makes me ask... can't you just put try around your code calling openConnection to catch any exceptions coming out of there yourself?

Not saying this is ideal (I'm still on the fence about the Exceptions vs EitherT e IO a debate) but it would be doable for you now & without breaking / proliferating API. Am I missing something?

AfC