[zzzcpan]

And yet forcing the caller to deal with errors still doesn't prevent improper state in any way.

[TimJYoung]

It does if they don't handle the exception, which is the situation being described.

[zzzcpan]

Errors cause side effects, which is how you get to improper state. How does forcing the caller to handle errors helps with removing side effects?

[TimJYoung]

Because the caller either deals with the error (and fixes the state) or they don't, but there's never a case where the callee was unable to force the caller to fix the state. If the caller then goes on to just handle/suppress the exception and continue with the invalid state, then at least they're making an explicit decision that is on them.

[zzzcpan]

That's the point, forcing to handle errors doesn't force to do it properly.

[msbarnett]

It's still strictly better than just letting people not bother to handle them, which is never proper.

[dnautics]

Is that true? What if you have an error that happens once every 10^9 requests and the service failure isn't critical (no one dies). Isn't it better to just not bother with the error, let the service keep running and don't worry about it?

[hnbroseph]

"perfect is the enemy of good"