On 6/7/06, Tim Starling <t.starling(a)physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
which is better? Should the backend dictate the error
format by
specifying an exception class with a fixed format? Of course, a caller
wishing to override the formatting could catch the exception, but is
that better than the old method of using a success/failure return value?
Should error handling be completely exception-dominated? Is there any
role for success/failure return values in a language with exception support?
Assuming this is a general question not specifically related to
MediaWiki, the general answer is that exceptions should only be used
for exceptional circumstances, and likely failures are better off
handled with return codes. It's better to use exceptions for weird
things like running out of memory, suddenly being unable to access the
disk, or an assertion failing, rather than something as banal as a bad
filename being supplied, for instance.
Also, it's not usually good practice to allow uncaught exceptions, as
in your "pretty error" case, is it?
HTH
Steve