[jwilliams]

> It would be really nice if all error possibilities were listed in the documentation so I could pick precisely what to handle.

Yeah, that's a problem - it's a problem of style and implementation rather than a "Java" problem... but it's a problem none-the-less.

Many exceptions in Java are simply == "it didn't work". Often there is no distinguishing between: (a) didn't work because you supplied something invalid (e.g. Integer.parseInt("notanint") and (b) it didn't work, but you can probably recover if you want and (c) it didn't work, there is nothing you can do about it.