The Right Approach to Exceptions

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 2/21/12 10:39 AM, foobar wrote:
> Regarding the downcast - you still perform a check in the code above!
>  You gained nothing by replacing a type check with a check on a
> hash.

You do gain because capability checks don't force a tree structure, 
whereas downcasting does.

> Regarding composition of several traits - even that simple snippet is
>  enough: throw new
> WithRainbows!withErrorCode!withFoobar!FileNotFoundException(...);
>
> That's without further design which could probably improve this
> further.

To quote a classic:

> It's clear that you are trying to generify exceptions. This
> contradicts the very notion of what exceptions are. You also seem to
> try to optimize the amount of exception classes. Making user code
> convoluted for the sake of some premature optimization which most
> likely has negligible affect is completely unacceptable. I get that
> you are a templates master, that does *NOT* mean everything must be
> made generic. You seem to prove the old saying that when all you have
> is a hammer everything looks like a nail.

It's gotta be one or the other.


Andrei