When is it right for a constructor to throw an exception?

Question

When is it right for a constructor to throw an exception? (Or in the case of Objective C: when is it right for an init\'er to return nil?)

It seems to me that a cons

Answer 1

If you are writing UI-Controls (ASPX, WinForms, WPF, ...) you should avoid throwing exceptions in the constructor because the designer (Visual Studio) can't handle them when it creates your controls. Know your control-lifecycle (control events) and use lazy initialization wherever possible.