Java - where and how should exceptions be used?

Question

I was reading some things about exception handling in Java, to be able to write better code. OK, I admit, I am guilty; I\'ve used too much try-catch{} blocks, I\'ve used

Answer 1

se-radio made a podcast episode about that topic of error handling that explains some philosophy about how to use exceptions, which can be restated as "Where to absorb them".

The main thing I retained is that most functions should let them bubble up, and most exceptions details should end up in a log file. Then the functions pass only global messages saying that something happened.

In a sense, this leads to a sort of exception hierarchy : one for each layer of code.

As I think they said, it doesn't make sense to explain to the user that such DB cluster failed because the DNS was unavailable, or because the disk was full. At that level, something happend that couldn't allow the transaction to complete, that's all the user has to know.

Of course, the developpers/administrators will be happy to see more details, that's why at the DB layer, the specific exceptions should be logged.