Why do Java people frequently consume exceptions silently?

Question

I never did any serious Java coding before, but I learned the syntax, libraries, and concepts based on my existing skills (Delphi & C#). One thing I hardly understand i

Answer 1

Please don't ever, ever, ever wrap a checked exception in an unchecked exception.

If you find yourself dealing with exceptions that you don't think you should then my advice is that you are probably working at the wrong level of abstraction.

I'll elaborate: checked and unchecked exceptions are two very different beasts. Checked exceptions are similar to the old method of returning error codes... yes, they are somewhat more painful to handle than error codes but they have advantages too. Unchecked exceptions are programming errors and critical system failures... exceptional exceptions in other words. When trying to explain what an exception is a lot of people get into a complete mess because they don't acknowledge the difference in these two, very different, cases.