I wouldn't say that it's encouraged, but it indeed is normal. However, one should only do it in the case when the caller function actually can't do anything to

I wouldn't say that it's encouraged, but it indeed is normal. However, one should only do it in the case when the caller function actually can't do anything to handle the error. In this case, the idea is to pass the exception further up to the caller's caller, etc. The bad part is, you have to be mindful of it when writing code, and add exception handling code in callers as necessary, however, I would argue that writing error-handling without exceptions also requires the same level of attention. I'm not saying exceptions don't have their gotchas ([1]), however, with all due respect, I don't think that your article does a good job at convincing the reader that using exceptions is a poor choice. [1] http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/020163371x/supplements/exception_handling_article.html http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/020163371x/supplements...