Larquetta Permenter
IT110-1402A-01
April 23, 2014
As a programmer, we’re always trying to prepare our software to be perfect. This means no errors! Since we’re human, we can only do our best. It’s when these errors occur, how they are dealt with, error or exception handling. Understanding each type will go a long way when client acceptance testing begins.
Errors are problems in program operations usually caused because the code isn’t written correctly or a problem occurred that wasn’t addressed during the design process. According to the Board, the term exception is a reclassification of errors into a category of errors that can occur in a program but can be handled in a way that allows the program to continue operation.(Editorial Board, 2014) Dealing with errors in a well-defined way allows programmers to write code to handle errors. This is exception handling. There are pros and cons for using error and exception handling.
Exception handling enables normal code to be written and to deal with the exceptional cases code elsewhere. It also provides the means to separate the details of what to do when something out of the ordinary happens from the main logic of a program. A second advantage of exceptions is the ability to propagate error reporting up the call stack of methods which allows grouping and differentiating error type objects. In traditional programming, error detection, reporting, and handling often leads to confusing code. This presents disadvantages because you lose compile time support, the calling method must take care is testing all possible return values, and the code blends leading to cluttering. These errors can only be corrected by fixing the program. The best programs of this type forestall errors if possible, recover from them when they occur without terminating the application, or (if all else fail) gracefully terminate an affected application and save the error information to a log file.
Using the latest and greatest seems to have caught on with exception handling input or output as well as file opening and system timeouts. It wasn’t available in earlier languages but seems to have been embraced. Not only does it address users’ errors but also normal system errors can be addressed as well. In addition, the error messages can be understood by all.
References
Editorial Board. (2014). Principles of Programming. Words of Wisdom, LLC.
Additional information from http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/java_exceptions.htm