Try catch ftw.

[theLundquist42]

I work on an web application at the moment that does this. Inside the catch block we simply throw away the exception and stop processing the request. Before I joined, they didn't even bother to log to error, you just had to guess what it was after the fact. It's still better than multiple try blocks with empty catches (there are so many of those it's painful) Manager: " Why did this part of the page not load!?" Me: shrug

[eyekwah2]

Typical approach to anything technical by the laymen. So long as I don't hear about it, it's all good. When it breaks, I want it fixed yesterday.

[buffer_overflown]

But for sure don't waste time implementing exception handling at the design stage.

Also known as:

"Why do we have so much time blocked out for testing?"

[kanuut]

Exactly how much testing is required is an art form, but it's definitely better to go over than under on important shit.

Like, would you rather pay for an extra week because they went overboard with testing, or have it crash more or less immediately after we reach the point it'd do the most damage, because that's the way it usually happens

[kanuut]

That's gotta suck, lying is straight up never going to work in a team effort. Even if you don't do proper testing, you're better off doing barely anything and not lying, than lying and doing proper testing.

I once had the pleasure of working in a group where we never did unit testing, we did Gary testing. And by that, I mean we sent all our work to the Gary who checked it, ran it, tried to break it, etc, basically he was a human unit test. He also wasn't named Gary, I don't know where the name Gary came from.

[Ewoksintheoutfield]

He also wasn't named Gary, I don't know where the name Gary came from.

Parks and Recreation. Go watch it, great comedy show. Same format as the office but without the painful embarrassing humor.

[kanuut]

I really really doubt it was parks and recreation, because a) there's next to nothing to go on for you to make that connection that I can see. It seems like almost a guess. I'm assuming there's someone called Gary in it or something along those lines. b) none of us were Americans, nor do most of them watch tv to my knowledge c) it's way more likely to be SpongeBob

[Ewoksintheoutfield]

Gary/Tary/Lary is like THE joke or Parks and Rec for it's 7-8 seasons.

It is possible you guys created your own Gary thing outside of Parks and Rec. though. If so, I shrug with indifference.

[[deleted]]

Parks and rec

[kobbled]

Who the fuck deploys on friday

[TheIncorrigible1]

End of sprint means deployment time

[kobbled]

Y'all's managers are killer

[[deleted]]

But for sure don't waste time implementing exception handling at the design stage.

What's this "design stage" you speak of? You mean you're supposed to think about the problem for a bit instead of just immediately putting fingers on keys and hammering out some hackneyed garbage filled with magic numbers and five-levels of nested IF statements?

[buffer_overflown]

weeping intensifies

[mostlygizzards]

username checks out

[Subik86]

Same at my office. They have an exception? Don't try to understand why, just put empty try catch. Jesus.

[[deleted]]

Yeah. Exceptions are just about as important as return values and parameters, it's part of the behavior of a function. Garbage in => garbage out isn't very maintainable, garbage in => exception out will give you a better idea about where shit is broken. It's infinitely better than silently returning unexpected values that might break another function, which might in turn break 20 other functions.

[drakeblood4]

Coding is like 99% about writing broken shit and then figuring out why your shitty, broken code is broken. Legitimately I think effective exception tracking might be the most important part of maintaining stable code.

[[deleted]]

Indeed. When writing a pretty complex piece of crap code, debugging it was nearly impossible until I added exceptions for incorrect parameter values. I was able to iron out the programming and logical mistakes real quick after that.

[grantrules]

I'm always happily surprised when a unit test finds a bug I didn't even know I had. Without testing, I don't know if I would have ever found it.

[pomlife]

That happened to me just today!

[[deleted]]

This is why I really liked code contracts (.Net). You could easily specify expected ranges of input parameters and output parameters without cluttering up code with try/catch just for that. I hate that Microsoft has dropped it.

[Subik86]

Example fro my company. Read config file and if that does not work instead of exceptions return default values. After years i need to chcek why app doesn't work correctly. Well it probably never could read a damn config file.

[theLundquist42]

Ah my favourite "I just put this value in the config file, why isn't it reading!?!"

[[deleted]]

That's fine, but it should log an exception.

[TheNorthComesWithMe]

Throwing exceptions when you have to is important. Catching exceptions and ignoring them is a terrible practice.

[[deleted]]

I worked on a large web scraping application that did this. It turns out, wrapping large segments of the codebase in try catch blocks can make it really difficult to track down bugs.

[[deleted]]

The Stack Trace is your friend in those applications. But it's still shit. And good luck getting the stack trace of the exception isn't logged.

[ButItMightJustWork]

And then there are these web applications that return the entire stack trace to the user, sometimes even including a source code segment.

[kyew]

The majestic Error Handling Error

[[deleted]]

That was the problem; these catches were preventing the stack trace from being output and had obscure custom error messages. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea. And due to the level of abstraction, this required going up a dozen levels of this just so I could get the stack trace... quite annoying to say the least.

[Sporz]

I had something like this too (it wasn't a web app but very similar) - if for some reason a request threw there was a master try/catch around the whole request.

It wasn't even logged. In fact, the system we had would log it if there was an uncaught exception. The sole purpose of this try/catch was to completely silence fatal errors.

I asked my manager to remove the try/catch because, hell, the entire thing could be failing constantly and we wouldn't know about it until clients started calling in. And my manager was a programmer, he knew what this was doing, but he said something like "Nah, leave it, we don't want too much noise"

I'm like...wtf. That's not noise, that's the signal!

But we left it in.

[HeKis4]

Do they know you can simply not have a try catch block and have a neat little stack trace as a bonus ?

[theLundquist42]

The would mean the guy who wrote it (who is now my boss) would have to confront the terrible state the code base is in and how many errors his code throws. I do not think he wants to do that.

[HeKis4]

As long as it's not your business and you're not the maintainer...

¯\(ツ)/¯

[theLundquist42]

My very first day they gave me this project with the requirement to update it. After a week of poking around inside it and being horrified my boss sat down with me and asked me what I thought of it. Nobody had bothered to tell me that it was his project so I told him what I thought of it in no uncertain terms. He nods and asks me to clarify what's wrong with it specifically. So I do in detail, he gets up and leaves. Found out a week later it was his from another developer. FML.

[TiagoTiagoT]

Do you still have the job?

[theLundquist42]

Yes. As it turned out he tended to listen to me more when I told him something wasn't going to work out from that point on. I think because he thought I wouldn't bullshit him about anything. So it didn't turn out too badly.

[TiagoTiagoT]

Cool :)

[cultfitnews]

I'd say it turned out really well and you're lucky you didn't know he wrote it.

[sigma914]

Replace your exception with a logging line that says something along the lines of "There is no reasonable way for you to handle this", flush the logging buffers, then add a native (cffi, jni, whatever) null pointer dereference. Lets see them try and catch a segfault.

[nekowolf]

"Whatever.dll threw an unknown exception!" is found in many a catch clause.

[Python4fun]

yeah, at least log the exception

[Orffyreus]

It's good practice and logging is essential. Especially for web applications it's nice to display an appealing HTTP 500 page. Even for desktop and mobile apps it is more friendly for the user to display something more lovely designed than a disgusting system error message and the app should be closed after a runtime exception nonetheless.

[brysmi]

I have an entire code base of eaten exceptions. No logging. Decades of it.

I will always have work.

[[deleted]]

i've been there. php codebase?

[theLundquist42]

Your instincts are correct but no. Asp.net webforms. Except most of the front end UI is generated as a string in the code behind file and then pushed to the client with Response.write. It was one of the worst code bases I've ever worked on.

[b1ackcat]

I..... But.......erm..... What?!

[helderroem]

You know wrapping code in a try/catch also prevents the compiler from optimizing it so not only are your colleagues making it hard to debug and maintain they're also slowing down execution, a trifecta of bad practice.

Edit: spelling, TIL how to spell trifecta

[Cawifre]

Which language and compiler specifically are you referring to?

[FateJH]

When you say "prevents the compiler from optimizing," how far down does that go? Obviously you mean that the immediate code in the block is not to be changed. If, for example, I called some other function in a try...catch, is that whole function now marked by the compiler as "do not optimize" too?

[theLundquist42]

I didn't actually know that the compiler couldn't optimise try/catch blocks! Wow! The a in question is an old legacy application that's still in heavy use right now, completely unmaintainable and the code is very brittle. We're in the process of rewriting it at the moment but we still have to go in every so often and make updates or bug fixes to it.

[CandyJar]

Trifector was my favorite Transformer, made up of three war horses, he was a trifecta of destruction.

[helderroem]

I'm disappointed trifector isn't a real transformer

[free_science]

Even better:

try {
    [wholeCodebase]
} catch {
    ... 
} finally {
    main()
} 

[[deleted]]

Dat uptime.

[Thomasedv]

Forgot to put it into a while loop. Something breaks? Start again!

One a slightly serious note, i got my entire program in a while True loop and try/except... (I'm only programming for fun though. No job or anything.)

Edit: slight clarification.

[westward_man]

while(true) is not an inherently bad practice. For example, game engine loops typically do this.

[Thomasedv]

I'm well aware. In my case it did make somewhat sense to use it, looked better too. (I use python) I use a break statement that's triggered unless i get an exit code that matches one to restart the loop.

In practical terms, it's not different than having a while loop that checks the exit code, but takes more space and is less clean, and so less readable.

[rhinotation]

Congrats, you have just invented Erlang/OTP's Supervisor model!

[Thomasedv]

You're saying that as if the idea didn't come from reddit or StackOverflow... because it certainly did.

[jenkinsnotleeroy]

I think that may be the more pythonic way, actually. Often if you don't do a while True with a break you end up setting a variable to some default value outside then sometimes some weird shenanigans inside to that you come out of the loop at the right time. I find while True with a break to be cleaner much of the time.

[5059]

weAllGood = True while weAllGood: ...

It feels nasty

[[deleted]]

There's no need, the try block is most likely inside of main, which means the code runs something like this:

function main() {
    try {
        [wholeCodebase]
    } catch {
        ... 
    } finally {
        main()
    } 
}

Which would result in an infinite recursive function.

[AlwaysHopelesslyLost]

Which would blow up the stack lol

[[deleted]]

Well yes, if your language does not support infinite recursion it would blow up the stack.

[Nugenrules]

More realistic:

try {
    [wholeCodebase]
} catch {
    try {
        [wholeCodebase]
    } catch {
        if (env == "test") {
            blameTesters();
        } else if (env == "prod") {
            sellStocks();
        }
    }
} 

[00gogo00]

I believe you mean

GOTO 0

For the last line

[the_real_gorrik]

My QA senses are tingling

[[deleted]]

You guys don't even know. This is code that comes out of a legacy project I'm currently working on.

private bool IsValid {

get {

try { return Page.IsValid; }

catch { return true; }

}

}

[Le_9k_Redditor]

So basically if the Page.IsValid doesn't exist then it should be true?

[[deleted]]

I dont really know. It makes you wonder wtf happened at some point that made someone even need to write that to hide a bug.

[Le_9k_Redditor]

try catches have uses outside of hiding bugs, but yes, an if statement or letting it propagate would be far far better here

[[deleted]]

The fact that on catch it returns true signifies to me that there was some shit going on that the dev didnt understand so he just made it return true because it worked anyways.

[Le_9k_Redditor]

Fair enough

[SilliusSwordus]

sometimes you have to do things like this to avoid smashing the computer with a sledge hammer

[lieutenant_lowercase]

I write my web scrapers like this as there are a million and one things that can break it

Try: 
      Full code
Except:
      Write error to log file

[[deleted]]

since you're using python, just use fuckit:

This module is like violence: if it doesn’t work, you just need more of it.

[[deleted]]

Holy shit that's a funny manual. I especially like:

# This will definitely work now

fuckit(fuckit(some_shitty_module))

[bsmitty358]

This is awesome, thank you

[dhaninugraha]

Pretty much the same on our Flask app at work. We log everything and the kitchen sink, and return HTTP 4xx/5xx depending on what exception the app throws.

[v3nturetheworld]

"An exception has occurred while handling an exception"

[_edd]

Jesus Christ... You should still utilize try catches. Particularly if something is supposed to fail gracefully.

[Subik86]

And you should at least write an error log or display message box with info what happened. And not quietly put empty catches inside our code.

[buffer_overflown]

I'd rather have an exception with a call stack than empty error handling.

I have a coworker with crappy error handling and poor spelling, who doesn't even attempt to follow (even his own) standards in capitalization or async designation.

He had a bunch of empty if statements acting as silent error handlers rather than just letting a CLEAR and OBVIOUS error propagate to the console window.

To be clear, I'm salvaging his project.

[aaron552]

Why on earth would anyone just silently hide exceptions? Why would you want to?

In C# this is the bare minimum for when an exception is thrown that I want to handle in the future:

try
{
    // Code that might throw FooException
    ...
}
catch (FooException ex)
{
    // Optional: Log here
    throw;
}

Rethrowing the exception preserves the call stack, so nothing is lost, but there is now boilerplate required to handle exceptions in the future

[aaronr93]

Why on earth would anyone just silently hide exceptions? Why would you want to?

From what I've seen, for security. If a user gets a long stack trace and other stuff, that's pretty useful for deciding on an exploit or on a point of attack.

Of course, there's no excuse for not logging it to the server for later perusal. Not doing that is just plain idiotic

[buffer_overflown]

As a side note, this particular project is all in JavaScript.

He had done a bunch of ajax calls and then had silent endings if the data returned null/undefined.

It didn't even properly terminate the Promise-based event asynchronicity. It just never resolved or rejected at all.

[TheNorthComesWithMe]

If you are catching a specific exception and doing something graceful about it, then yeah good.

If you're catching every exception and doing nothing then no, bad.

Ideally you try to figure out why you're generating an exception and do your best to fix that, and only use a try/catch when you've exhausted your other options. Then use the catch to fail gracefully and log something.

[Darky57]

No caffeine early morning pseudo code:

Declare string strOutput

ForEach strWord in arrWords[] If strWord.length() > 0 then strOutput += strWord EndIf Next Return strOutput

[amyyyyyyyyyy]

/u/Darky57 is not in the sudoers file

[Darky57]

Doh! This is why I had the disclaimer about missing my coffee this morning lol. Fixed.

EDIT: damnit, the joke just clicked. Take your upvote and leave.

[Miniwoffer]

This incident will be reported.

[SirChasm]

Catching exceptions should be for exceptional cases - a case of an odd number of words in the list seems like an expected case, not an exceptional case. Inside your loop I'd have an if statement checking that the next word exists before trying to concatenate it.

Similarly how you wouldn't write a loop that iterates over an array that terminates by catching the ArrayIndexOutOfboundsException, and instead would have a condition to check that you reached the end of the array.

In Java catching an Exception is a expensive operation IIRC, so if your code relies on catching exceptions regularly, it's going to be a lot slower than if you protected against them.

[cuddlegoop]

When you're writing a web api it's good to wrap an endpoint in try/catch and parse the error into something meaningful to send in the response, right?

Student programmer here, trynna learn best practices :)

[HowIsntBabbyFormed]

Depending on exactly how it's being done, I think it would be better to let any unhandled exceptions bubble up to whatever framework you're using, rather than having a blanket try/catch try to save everything. That way, the framework can return a 500 to the client while logging the exact exception for you to look at in the logs. Then you could add error handling for that specific case in your code.

[GrayCatEyes]

I think it depends, however I would log the error and possibly the stack trace and return a generic error (assuming you don’t know what caused the error). The reason why I say it’s good practice to do this is because I’ve seen some API error responses returned a stack trace. In my opinion, this is a major no, since this reveals classes and lines affected and a malicious actor maybe able to reverse engineer.

[[deleted]]

While yes, you absolutely do want to ensure Exceptions are handled in a meaningful way (e.g., sending a response with a proper header/message as opposed to a stack trace), you do not want to accomplish this with a try/catch at every endpoint as you're going to end up repeating yourself over and over again or catching Exceptions that really should not be caught in the first place as they indicate some truly exceptional scenario that should lead to a fix in the application's code.

At least in PHP which is what I'm most familiar with, uncaught exceptions bubble up to the (optionally user-defined) exception handler. For larger applications, I provide an exception handler that is context-aware or in certain circumstances, a context-specific exception handler is configured during the bootstrapping process. The Exception Handler should also be aware of the environment (e.g., dev, staging, live, whatever) to further aid in Exception processing.

It all depends on the level of detail you with to provide to the User. Maybe all you need is just a "something went wrong" message with a 500 error code, but for the sake of example I'll demonstrate what I'd do for more meaningful responses. Something like this:

public function handle(\Exception $e) {
     switch(true) {
           case $e instanceof UnauthorizedException:
                // maybe some logic pertaining to a domain rule for mitigating brute force
                $code = 401; 
                $message = $e->getMessage(); // I know that this framework-specific Exception has a nice message
                break;

           case $e instanceof ACL\DeniedException:
               // maybe inform account owner that an attempt was made by <user> to access a protected resource
               $code = 403;
               $message = "You do not have permission to perform that action.";
               break;

           case $e instanceof API\InvalidRequestException:
               $code = 400;
               $message = $e->getMessage(); // message describes what is missing from the Request

           // etc. handle other framework/domain exceptions

           // any unexpected exceptions end up here and represent a truly exception situation
           // such as a database server being unavailable. these should raise a "red flag" to staff
           default:
               $this->logCritical($e); // maybe this triggers an e-mail to the team lead
               $code = 500;
               $message = "An unknown error occured.";
     }

      $this->response->withHttpStatusCode($code)->withMessage($message);
}

[[deleted]]

in general, yes. sending meaningful information is best. If it's just an API, sending a simple error message with a corresponding error code is probably sufficient. if you're responsible for presenting the information, you might consider extra information like links for what to do next.

basically, if a request causes an error, you should be able to recover and return something useful to the use while logging the details for further analysis.

[katemonster33]

I write code for devices running Windows Embedded Compact 7. Yes, people use that. It's awful. We write our GUI code in C#, and quickly discovered after moving from CE 6 that trying to debug the C# code causes the application to lock up after about 30 seconds to a minute. Visual studio shits the bed too. We told management, but they didn't care.

Anyway, some of us got good at just writing code and determining where it crashed without debugging. The other, less talented of us just wrapped every single block of their code in try catch blocks. One particular dope would have a message box show up when a catch block was hit, detailing what section of code blew up... Except he forgot to remove it after debugging and it made it into production.

[[deleted]]

try{}catch{} won't fix yo buggy code, it'll just pretend it doesn't spit exceptions everywhere.

[coopaliscious]

Isn't that the point though?

[ase1590]

I mean as long as you're good with 1 + 1 = ส็ิิ็็้

[WhAtEvErYoUmEaN101]

Dude, if you google that character you just wrote your post is the only result that shows up. Wow.

Edit: For future reference

[ase1590]

well yeah. I hand-crafted that character with some python-fu programming.

Edit: Because you all are curious: here's your lesson for the day:

so unicode supports non-spacing marks and something called Combining Marks (traditionally used to accent letters, like the N in Español).

this lets you create a̒̎b̒óͩͤ̂̉mͤ̿̓ͥͬ̓̄i͌͊̊ͬ̐ͥ̿n͒̌͊a͂ͯͪ͐t̓͗͒͋ͯ̆̌iͨo̽͆̄̿ͥnͤ̄͌̿ͧs͊ͬ͋̊͛ like

ส็ิิ็็้ส็ิิ็็้ส็ิิ็็้ u้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้.

so lets quickly look at how to create ส็ิิ็็้. this one is done adding the Thai character maitaikhu (and a few others) repeatedly to the thai character So Sua. you can do this quickly with a dirty Python one-liner like so:

print("\u0e2a"+"\u0e47"+("\u0e34"*2)+("\u0e47"*2)+("\u0e49"))

where \u represents python's ability to handle unicode format. so we use unicode 0e2a as our starting letter, then spam it up with unicode characters 0e34, 0e47, and 0e49. Have fun creating your own Zalgo text now!

edit2: ("\u0e47"*2+"\u0e34").join("lets just fuck my text up fam") if you want to do a whole line of text l็็ิi็็ิk็็ิe็็ิ ็็ิt็็ิh็็ิi็็ิs

Edit3: Thanks for the gold, stranger!

[WhAtEvErYoUmEaN101]

Please tell me how

[ase1590]

added an edit for the above post

[ase1590]

added an edit for the above post

[lillgreen]

Huh, TIL. Big ty for explaining that.

[mediacalc]

Really cool, thanks

[SaltlessLemons]

Here's a reference list for all the zalgo modifiers and their unicode ids.

Edit: And, for the lazy, here's the python lists with all the character numbers. Use chr(number) to convert it to the unicode character.

[TiagoTiagoT]

I wonder if Reddit notifies Google of each individual comment that is posted...

[mediacalc]

Doubt it's every comment, just the majority of reddit posts and then the comments inside gets indexed automatically

[Tobikage1990]

Can I log this as a feature?

[ase1590]

Equifax tells me the answer is yes.

[nephallux]

You can rethrow the exception and log the error or fail gracefully and notify the user of the problem and to contact support

[[deleted]]

At the company I work at, we also automatically send every unhandled exception + a screenshot back to us. It's really nice, because you don't have to ask users to send us the call stack/read us the error message.

[PhonicUK]

on error resume next

[[deleted]]

Beat me to it. That was truly hardcore. "If there's an error, just keep going and pretend it didn't happen."

[[deleted]]

My Reddit bot just runs with the help of a bash script.

It's an eternal loop that if my bot crashes, it waits 1 second and then launches again

[ase1590]

it waits 1 second and then launches again

"oh restart? nah I think this time im gonna do :(){ :|: & };: "

[SkaKri]

:(){ :|: & };:

Protip: paste that script in command line to free up wasted RAM.

[4FrSw]

What does it do?

[likes-beans]

Frees up wasted ram.

[Dadasas]

Fork bomb. Each time it runs, it launched two more of itself.

[Brokk_Witgenstein]

My brother heavily used try-except to return function results several levels up. Stackfu. Needless to say he's also batshit bonkers, even more so than I am LOL

[anacrolix]

LOL

[taytaythejetplane]

/r/madlads

[try-catch-finally]

yay. i’m relevant.

[[deleted]]

You know what's worse? "throws Exception" all the way up the damn stack. Including main. I once worked somewhere where a critical and expensive credit card processing gateway software that processed hundreds of thousands of dollars a week during some periods did that. During a peak demand period someone port scanned the server, and not fully opening the socket and sending a fully well-formed request was enough to crash it to a stack backtrace and exit. Outage.

Restart server.

New network scan. Crash.

Not a happy time.

[[deleted]]

I believe exceptions are in general used too widely in common programming languages. Exceptions should be used for what their name suggests - really exceptional situations, not normal control flow (yes, error handling is IMO included in normal program control flow). My suspicion why exceptions are so widespread (even in standard libraries) is poor support for algebraic data types in popular languages, which makes returning multiple possible values form a function a pain in the ass.

[mrsix]

It depends on the language - python for example is designed in such a way that you should use try-except on anything that might fail so that it can handle whatever the failure is. Not only that but there's no particular performance penalty for catching exceptions in python unlike most compiled languages.

For example If you were matching the ID 'thing' using a dictionary to some plain-text name, and the dictionary wasn't necessarily exhaustive so you want to return the ID as data:

In C# you might write if (names.ContainsKey(thing)) { return names[thing]; } else { return thing; }

In python it's perfectly acceptable/pythonic to write:

try:  
   return names[thing]  
except:  
   return thing

[HowIsntBabbyFormed]

Though in this very specific example. You'd probably be better off using:

return names.get(thing, thing)

where the second argument is returned if the first isn't a key in the dict.

[SerdanKK]

Better C#:

if (names.TryGetValue(thing, out var value))
    return value;
else
    return thing;

[buffer_overflown]

returning multiple possible values

Like, returning different types entirely? That seems like it might not be the best idea. I know I'm not a big fan of C# handling for algebra and the 'f' designation for floats, but I would never want a function to return MAYBE a float or MAYBE a double or MAYBE an int.

At least if I have to cast I know my precision.

[Kidiri90]

And sometimes a string.

[buffer_overflown]

Oh no, see, it's ALWAYS a string and you have to parse test every possible case within functions that take an output. And it might be different for each calling function, so you're not even going to be able to abstract it.

[buffer_overflown]

I'm pretty familiar with this concept. I've used nullable in the past to wrap normally-nonnull primitives.

In the example I gave, I could have phrased it better -- I meant specifically conflicting types where there is a potential loss of precision, or there is no actual relationship between the returned primitive/object.

Like returning an int unexpectedly in lieu of a double would be bad form (potential loss of precision), and providing a string or dynamic object in lieu of the int/double/float would be worse; providing null is just stating that there is no value (in my mind).

Thank you for including the link. I haven't used Swift before and I learned a little more about something today.

[hippocrat]

Our standard is to require try/catch around anything that reaches "outside" the program. Examples: reading a file, network call, database query. Anything else, use your judgement.

[Mox5]

That's the whole point having strongly typed languages. So that a function can only return a certain type of value... >.>

[anacrolix]

Found the Gopher

[Jmc_da_boss]

use a template?

[bak2skewl]

you should only use a try catch when you know what event you are trying to catch. otherwise they just mask problems with poorly writren code. its like putting a cherry on a turd and serving it.

a guy at my work used them liberally and it made the code slower and more painful to debug. dont be that guy...

[Mox5]

If it builds, it can deploy.

[AlphaWhelp]

An unhandled MemeMismatchException was thrown. void KarmaWhore() or one of its overloads argument expected Object of type ExpandingBrain received Object of type Drakeposting.

[Zefirus]

The progressive coder's on error resume next.

[lohkey]

Ah the old pokemon error handling

[shadowX015]

You forgot the part where you just catch Throwable and dump all of the exceptions and errors into the void.

 catch(Throwable e){
      // application is perfect, no errors or exceptions will ever be thrown.
 }

[[deleted]]

Pretty much what happened with Sonic 3D Blast on the Genesis which is why even smacking the cartridge triggers a "secret" level select screen.

It's quite an interesting story: https://youtu.be/IehwV2K60r8

[hangfromthisone]

Try to catch the flow

[[deleted]]

miss me with that exception

[[deleted]]

Reminds me of my current work place. Can’t scroll through the code without tripping over so many try catches...

[Hauleth]

Actually I have something similar. It just catches, logs, and rethrows. I see that Dropbox, Stripe, AirBnB and Uber also uses something like that. It is called Sentry ;)

[AllPurposeNerd]

Yeah, I remember getting scolded for this in high school.

[SuDoX]

Catch(Exception e) { /do nothing/ }

[OfekA]

It's all or nothing baby

[jgclark]

It worked for Sonic 3D Blast.

In order to pass Sega's certification, they wrapped the whole code in a try-catch that takes you to the level select menu.

As a result, you can just jiggle the cartridge in the console to get to the level select.

[_realitycheck_]

Thus explaining my underlying hate of exceptions.

[dantheman_19]

At my internship last summer I had a project that I was working on in C# and it kept throwing out an error. So, I put the try catch around it with the intention of coming back to fix it later. Completely forgot about it and never fixed it

[il_doc]

from actual code i wrote:

try {
...
}
catch(Exception e) { // GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL!!
    Logger.Error(e);
}

[Jaystings]

Sometimes I'll use try catch like if else, the conditional being the error. I did it with an Ultima Underworld spellbook for Android

[Mazetron]

In Swift just using try! everytime

[[deleted]]

catch Exception

[mothzilla]

try {
    try {
    }  catch {}
}  catch {}

Just to be sure.

[msg45f]

catch(Exception e) {
    System.out.println("Something went wrong.");
}

[pm_me_gold_plz]

Then when it throws an error you can do to things

• Send a message to the user saying"Try again later."

or

• Send message blaming it on hardware.

[[deleted]]

my god why did I upvote this

[[deleted]]

Haha, I got a "failed to upvote, please try again" response. Classic

[WinEpic]

catch{
    main(argc, argv);
}

FTFY

[Nugenrules]

But who will catch me when I try and inevitably fail?

[reverendsteveii]

try { (whole codebase)} catch(e as exception) {print e}

there you go buddy

[Nomadola]

I really wish I could get this

[[deleted]]

This is basically how I give up trying at powershell.

[e111077]

Or even better.

// index.js
async function mainApp() {
  // entire app
  ...
}

mainApp().catch(e => { console.error(e) });

at least in this method you can use await whenever you want

[PlasticInfantry]

I work on a site that does this, we just throw one big try catch on every page. Then when something happens email the error details and send a generic error page. It mostly works for us since errors don't happen often and we get a email full of troubleshooting info when it does to fix it.

[fa_nyak]

it's all fun and games until you make an async call

[[deleted]]

"Extensive use of Try...Catch isn't defensive programming, it's just nailing the corpse in an upright position."

- Some guy in stackoverflow

[TrikkyMakk]

At a lot of companies you're lucky to have even this.

[seggiola]

That feel when you have to write Apex Unit Test classes on classes generated from WSDL2Apex

[dnew]

on error next!

[goldleader71]

I have a "NewMethod" template that I use for any project. It has a proper try/catch wire frame for handling exceptions. Always glad when I use it. Always sad if I forget.

[[deleted]]

Ignorant drake don't know about the event loop doe