nonexistent does not necessarily imply invalid. I don't use rails, so take my ignorance into account, but I'd hate to catch exceptions all the time instead of j

nonexistent does not necessarily imply invalid. I don't use rails, so take my ignorance into account, but I'd hate to catch exceptions all the time instead of just checking for falsey values. Ex: "Enter your student ID" s = Student.find_by_id(params[:id]) if s # do stuff else # do other stuff end vs begin s = Student.find_by_id(params[:id]) # do stuff rescue # do other stuff end