Hi all,


I've only recently begun using exceptions in my code.  I certainly see their
power, and I could see entirely doing away with error codes. However, in
reading some of the posts in various groups, it seems that some people feel
that exceptions are for situations that are not generally recoverable.


The way I hear the description is like this:
The reason for throwing an exception is because something critical has
failed and not much can be done except for stopping the current operation
and returning to some level of the message loop.  (i.e. File to be opened
didn't exist, must bail on operation)  This seems too limited, and not
taking full advantage of the exception mechanism.


When I look at the level of detail available using exceptions, it seems that
there is a lot of leeway for trapping specific errors and handling them.
(i.e. try to open a port, operation throws an exeption indicating that the
port is unavailable, catch it and try opening another port instead)


It might even seem to make sense to use exceptions in cases where the
exception is expected.  (i.e. repeat reading lines from a file, continue
processing until exception is thrown indicating end-of-file)


I'm interest in how others use exceptions with reference to these examples.


I'm not sure if this is a cut-and-dried question, or if I'm starting a
religious war.  Either way, I'm very interested in the response.


Thanks,


-pete