Checked vs unchecked exceptions

mckoder via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Tue Jun 27 03:18:04 PDT 2017


On Tuesday, 27 June 2017 at 06:10:52 UTC, Tobias Müller wrote:
>
> It's not at all bad code to write things down that the compiler 
> could infer, quite the opposite.
> Writing it down signals _intent_ and the compiler can check if 
> the implementation is matching the specification which gives 
> you additional security.
> Additionally it allowes the compiler to do the checks locally 
> which is much easier.
>
> Function signatures are interfaces which should be 
> self-contained IMO, i.e. it should not be necessary to examine 
> the function body. That's what signatures are for. At very 
> least for public interfaces.
>
> I honestly don't understand how people that care a great deal 
> about expressive type systems can be so opposed to checked 
> exceptions. After all they wouldn't use 'object' for everything 
> either.
>

Bravo! These are very important points!

FWIW, Bruce Eckel who is so often quoted by people who are 
opposed to checked exceptions comes from a dynamic language 
background. Here's a relevant quote by Bruce Eckel:

"I think that the belief that everything needs strong static 
(compile-time) checking is an illusion; it seems like it will buy 
you more than it actually does. But this is a hard thing to see 
if you are coming from a statically-typed language."

Source: 
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/comp.lang.java.advocacy/r8VPk4deYDI/qqhL8g1uvf8J

If you like dynamic languages such as Python you probably agree 
with Bruce Eckel. If you are a fan of static checking then I 
don't see how you can like that.


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