Rubenerd

Well today in Java we learnt how to throw our own exceptions. Because Exception is an inherited object of Throwable rather than just a primitive or a pointer we can create our own Exception objects for circumstances where we want Java to treat an event in the same way as an error.

public class TrekError extends Throwable {
  public TrekError() {
    // pass to superclass (Throwable) constructor
    super("Your logic is fatally flawed!");
  }
}
public class TestTrekError {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws TrekError {
    boolean trekBetterThanWars = true;
    if (trekBetterThanWars == false) {
      throw new TrekError();
    } else {
      System.out.println("Live long and prosper!");
    }
  }
}

As I think back to programs I've written in the past in other languages this could have been quite useful! Do Ruby and Python offer similar capability?

The main question I had that I didn't have time to ask in the lecture though was what the "better" or more correct way to use this in Java is. Are there circumstances where you could use such a technique but it would be a cheap shortcut rather than writing robust code? I suspect for all the usefullness that could be derived from this, it could also be easily abused.