Is it “bad” to use try-catch for flow control in .NET?

Question

I just found in a project:

try
{
    myLabel.Text = school.SchoolName;
}
catch
{
    myPanel.Visible = false;
}

I want to talk to the devel

Answer 1

I never like using exceptions for flow control. Exceptions are expensive, and it is difficult to determine what the actual flow of a program with exceptions being thrown to reach other places in code. To me this is like using GoTo. This doesn't mean that you should avoid exceptions, but rather an exception should be just that, an exception to what should normally happen in the program.

I think a worse part of the code, is that it's not even doing anything with the exception. There is no logging or even an explanation as to why the exception is being thrown.