Effective Java™: Programming Language Guide

Chapter 8. Exceptions

When used to best advantage, exceptions can improve a program's readability, reliability, and maintainability. When used improperly, they can have the opposite effect. This chapter provides guidelines for using exceptions effectively.

Item 39:Use exceptions only for exceptional conditions

Someday, if you are unlucky, you may stumble across a piece of code that looks something like this:

					// Horrible abuse of exceptions. Don't ever do this!
try {
    int i = 0;
    while(true)
        a[i++].f();
} catch(ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
}

What does this code do? It's not at all obvious from inspection, and that's reason enough not to use it. It turns out to be a horribly ill-conceived idiom for looping through the elements of an array. The ...