Exceptions are often a better way to handle errors than returning them as values. We argue that traditional exceptions provide better user and developer experience, and show that they even result in faster execution.
The article made a few good points, but a good amount of it was conjecture. I liked the part about comparing the two functions and showing that exceptions are faster but I think a big thing he’s not getting is readability. Even in the functions he showed, you can directly see that the one using std::expected has the happy path and error path directly in the function signature, whereas the exception one doesn’t.
As for the “error kind” trap he was talking about, that definitely exists, but ignores the fact that you can also get this same kind of error from exceptions. I’ve definitely gotten exceptions that I didn’t understand from Python or Java libraries, but it’s not a problem with exceptions but a problem with how they’re shown. If there’s nothing to tell me that I should have thought of that error, it shouldn’t be an expectation for a dev to have thought of it.
The article made a few good points, but a good amount of it was conjecture. I liked the part about comparing the two functions and showing that exceptions are faster but I think a big thing he’s not getting is readability. Even in the functions he showed, you can directly see that the one using std::expected has the happy path and error path directly in the function signature, whereas the exception one doesn’t.
As for the “error kind” trap he was talking about, that definitely exists, but ignores the fact that you can also get this same kind of error from exceptions. I’ve definitely gotten exceptions that I didn’t understand from Python or Java libraries, but it’s not a problem with exceptions but a problem with how they’re shown. If there’s nothing to tell me that I should have thought of that error, it shouldn’t be an expectation for a dev to have thought of it.