Performance cost of coding “exception driven development” in Java?

Question

Are there are any performance cost by creating, throwing and catching exceptions in Java?

I am planing to add \'exception driven development\' into a larger project.

Answer 1

As per your last edit. I think ( as Tony suggested ) using the NullObject pattern would be more useful here.

Consider this third scenario:

class NullUser extends User {

    public static NullUser nullUser = new NullUser();

    private NullUser(){}

    public int getAge() {
        return 0;
    }
}

//Later...
int age;

User user = getUser("adam"); // return nullUser if not found.
age = user.getAge();         // no catch, no if/null check, pure polymorphism