I don't think it's the exact opposite at all. It forces you to "catch" the exception, but doesn't force you to do anything with it, the same as a checked except

I don't think it's the exact opposite at all. It forces you to "catch" the exception, but doesn't force you to do anything with it, the same as a checked exception. Like in Go I can do: f, err := os.Open("foo.bar") I am then free to ignore err or do something with it, but the type system forces me to at least acknowledge that it exists. It's the "compiler forces you to acknowledge the possibility of an error" that makes them pretty similar to checked exceptions in my opinion.