Should I inherit from std::exception?

Question

I\'ve seen at least one reliable source (a C++ class I took) recommend that application-specific exception classes in C++ should inherit from std::exception. I\

Answer 1

The problem with std::exception is that there is no constructor (in the standard compliant versions) that accepts a message.

As a result I prefer to derive from std::runtime_error. This is derived from std::exception but its constructors allow you to pass a C-String or a std::string to the constructor that will be returned (as a char const*) when what() is called.