[Genbox]

Kotlin does have exceptions[1]

[1] https://kotlinlang.org/docs/exceptions.html#java-interoperab...

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They said "try to get rid of", which to me is akin to de-emphasizing.

Of course you'd have to deal with exceptions since you're running on the JVM and want to Interop with Java code, that doesn't mean it's idiomatic code.