Re: Exception Names
On Fri, 27 Mar 2009, Roedy Green wrote:
It may be too late now, but it would be nice if some exceptions were
renamed and the old names deprecated.
NullPointerException : We Javites make such a production of the fact
Java has no pointers, just references. This should be called
NullReferenceException.
Or references should be renamed to pointers. After all, java's references
are much more like C pointers, which are (usually) pointers to objects,
than C++ references, which are pointers to variables. Even Smalltalk calls
them pointers rather than references.
IllegalArgumentException: there is nothing illegal involved. This
should be renamed InvalidArgumentException.
There needs to be some exceptions much like IllegalArgumentException
that make a finer distinction.
InvalidDataError : Somebody goofed preparing the data.
CorruptDataError : checksums bad, wrong data format.
ProgrammingError : something that should not be possible, similar to a
failed assertion that is not turned off.
If we're reforming exceptions:
MalformedURLException should *require* the malformed URL as a parameter,
and include it in its toString. I had a MalformedURLException emerging
from deep within the guts of my app server recently, and had no bloody
clue what was going wrong, because neither the exception nor the logs
indicated what the URL in question was!
InputStream.read should throw an EOFException instead of returning -1 at
the end of a stream. Checking return values for special values is goofy C
bullshit that we shouldn't be doing in the 21st century. Personally, i'd
also like to see Map.get throw a KeyNotFoundException or some such instead
of returning null when a key isn't in the map, but i think most people
wouldn't agree with me on that.
I can probably think of loads more ...
tom
--
There is no violence or enmity in the LEGO universe until you, the
builder, decide what to build with the pieces. -- Pyrogenic