umm the example is contrived, and the title is overly broad. performance-sensitive code has exceptional situations that can either be handled, or should cause t

umm the example is contrived, and the title is overly broad. performance-sensitive code has exceptional situations that can either be handled, or should cause the program to abort. performance-sensitive code use libraries that throw exceptions too. or the recommendation here will be to use non-exception-throwing libraries only in performance-sensitive code? that significantly reduces what libraries i can use in my code. my interpretation of the essay is: where possible prefer is/else to try/catch. branching on if/else is easy and inexpensive. try/catch could be expensive if (1) new exception instance is created every time, (2) stack/backtrace is generated. you really want to avoid (2) when all you need from the exception is the information that the abnormal happened. if you can use a singleton exception, you may be able to use try/catch. then you can make the beauty (of the code) judgement later.