"Exceptional" has no reasonable objective definition, especially not at the library level. When you try to open a file by name and it doesn't exist, is that ex

"Exceptional" has no reasonable objective definition, especially not at the library level. When you try to open a file by name and it doesn't exist, is that exceptional? It depends on context. Whether something is "predictable and intentional" can even change with product evolution. It's a recipe for bikeshedding. This is a crazy criterion to try to make coding decisions by. Different applications need different trade-offs, and not every API will be suitable for all users. Standard libraries will make decisions according to what kind of applications the language targets. Libraries making other trade-offs can be written to cater to people with other needs. I get that some people are repeatedly encountering situations where they feel like exceptions are used in ways that reduce readability and performance, and they feel like this is a rule that could improve the situation by reducing the use of exceptions across the board, but please, apply your usual criteria of clarity, readability, and performance! If you believe that exceptions are the clearest way of expressing a certain bit of logic in your language and codebase, and that they are acceptably performant, don't get distracted from that by bottomless, ultimately insubstantial arguments about what it means to be "exceptional." Edit: Just wanted to add that I really enjoy the more expressive type systems that make it ergonomic to use return values in a lot of situations where exceptions are otherwise the most readable choice.