Re: To wrap or not to wrap?

On Thu, 08 May 2008 23:19:42 +0100, Aaron Fude <aaronfude@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> In my personal development efforts, I frequently wrap basic java
> functionality. For example, I have a
>
> String MyIO.urlToString(String url)
>
> or
>
> byte[] MIO.urlToBytes(String url)
>
> etc. These functions catch exceptions and return null if something
> goes wrong.

This is a really bad idea.  Instead of failing fast at the point of error 

(which aids debugging) problems just get deferred and a  
NullPointerException occurs later on with no context.  If the original  
exception hadn't been suppressed, the stack trace would tell you exactly  
where the problem was.

If something goes wrong and you can't recover from it, let the exception  
propagate.  The alternative is just storing up problems for later.

Dan.

-- 
Daniel Dyer
http://www.uncommons.org