java.lang.Exception vs. rolling your own exception

Question

At what point would you create your own exception class vs. using java.lang.Exception? (All the time? Only if it will be used outside the package? Only if it must contain ad

Answer 1

In most cases it doesn't make sense to create your own exception class.

There is a tendency in novice programmers to create their own exception class just so they can use a name that is more indicative of the type of error. So you'll find classes like FTPInitializationException, DAOFactoryException etc. even though such exceptions are not being handled differently than standard exceptions. This is clearly an anti pattern that should be avoided.