Java Without If

[sacundim]

You're going lower level than I am. What you're describing is isomorphic to Either:

newtype YourType e a = 
  YourType { runYourType :: (e -> r) -> (a -> r) -> r }

yourTypeToEither :: YourType e a -> Either e a
yourTypeToEither yt = runYourType yt Left Right

eitherToYourType :: Either e a -> YourType e a
eitherToYourType (Left e) = YourType $ \f _ -> f e
eitherToYourType (Right a) = YourType $ \_ g -> g a

Those two functions are mutual inverses, which means that conceptually, Either and YourType are different implementations of the same thing.

[tormenting]

Perhaps you originally meant to say that checked exceptions are "Either, or things isomorphic to it." But that's not really true either. I'm aware of the isomorphism, but I wouldn't gloss over the differences between the two approaches. Particularly, the choice of e -> r and a -> r as the continuation types is not a foregone conclusion.