

Exceptions or return codes? - Tihy
http://blog.tetrack.com/2009/01/exceptions-or-return-codes/

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russell
The blog references Spolsky who has marked it expired. Perhaps he has changed
his mind.

Problems with error codes:

Too easy to ignore.

Errors and normal return codes get mixed.

Often difficult to pick a distinguished error value, 0, -1?

Problems with exceptions:

Too easy to ignore. How often do you find empty exceptions?

Too many types of exceptions, The Java libraries are particularly guilty of
this.

Adding a checked exception can break code all over the universe.

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LogicHoleFlaw
This blog post fails the "well-reasoned argument" test:

Pros of Return Codes:

1) Return codes are typed

2) Return codes are cleaner than exceptions and can have additional associated
data

3) Exceptions are easy to ignore

4) Return codes integrate well with third-party code (how would you use
Exceptions and not blow your client's call stack?)

Error handling is hard, let's go shopping.

