Go Programming talk [OT]

[Bane]

Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:

> On 06/09/2010 06:28 AM, Pelle wrote:
> > On 06/09/2010 01:04 AM, Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> >> Bane, el 8 de junio a las 14:42 me escribiste:
> >>>>> Is a trade-off. When you don't handle the errors, exceptions might be
> >>>>> a win, but when you do handle them, I'm not so sure. And again, I'm
> >>>>> not
> >>>>> saying I particularly like one more than the other, I don't have a
> >>>>> strong opinion =)
> >>>>>
> >>>> Of course, the problem is that you rarely see the former code. Most
> >>>> of the time, people just write the second one with or without
> >>>> exceptions and don't bother about error checking if there are no
> >>>> exceptions. You are a lot more likely to get them to handle errors
> >>>> properly with exceptions than without (particularly with D's scope
> >>>> statements).
> >>>
> >>> Being lazy as I am, exceptions are faster and easier to use than
> >>> manual error checking. There will always be some unchecked return
> >>> value, with exceptions it can't happen. In a way same as GC vs manual
> >>> memory handling.
> >>>
> >>> Each thread of program I make I always enclose in try catch, so
> >>> everything is cought.
> >>
> >> Yes, I agree that "safety" is the best argument in favour of exceptions
> >> (as explicitness is the best argument in favour of no-exceptions). The
> >> Python Zen put it this way:
> >>
> >> Errors should never pass silently.
> >> Unless explicitly silenced.
> >>
> >> That's what I like the most about exceptions. I think try/catch is
> >> really ugly though. There has to be something better.
> >>
> >
> > Careful use of scope(exit) and simply avoiding catching exceptions works
> > well for me. Except when you have to catch, of course. :)
> 
> Same here. I think a good application only has few try/catch statements, 
> so the fact that try is a relatively heavy statement is not very important.
> 
> Andrei

In my experience exceptions have one great advantage that they are far easier to add/remove to existing codebase without changing lot of things. They require much less coding and do not obfuscate code flow.

So for what they offer and for what price - they are extremely worth it.