I like checked exceptions because you can't not deal with the error condition. Swallowed exceptions is a code smell that any half-decent developer will notice,

I like checked exceptions because you can't not deal with the error condition. Swallowed exceptions is a code smell that any half-decent developer will notice, whereas failing to check for some return value is much more subtle. Java allows you to have both, since you can design your exceptions as unchecked, or rethrow a checked exception wrapped in a runtime exception.