Catching base Exception class in .NET

Question

I keep hearing that

catch (Exception ex)

Is bad practise, however, I often use it in event handlers where an operation may for example go

Answer 1

I'm responding to "However, halting the process is the worst outcome..."

If you can handle an exception by running different code (using try/catch as control flow), retrying, waiting and retrying, retrying with an different but equivalent technique (ie fallback method) then by all means do so.

It is also nice to do error message replacement and logging, unless it is that pseudo-polite-passive-aggressive "contact your administrator" (when you know there is no administrator and if there was the administrator can't do anything about it!) But after you do that, the application should end, i.e. same behavior you get with an unhandled exception.

On the other hand, if you intend to handle the exception by returning the user to a code thread that has potentially trashed its state, I'd say that is worse than ending the application and letting the user start over. Is it better for the user to have to restart at the beginning or better to let the user destroy data?

If I get an unexpected exception in the module that determines which accounts I can withdraw money from, do I really want to log and report an Exception and return the user to the withdraw money screen? For all we know we just granted him the right to withdraw money from all accounts!