Joel on Developers and Exceptions

In his latest article, Joel Spolsky refers to the Empower Program for ISVs: “If you're a software company willing to commit to developing software for any variant of Windows, you can join the Empower Program for ISVs, which entitles you a huge pile of software at the ridiculously low price of $750.” Not to mention, the video of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in the advanced stages of ecstatic frenzy chanting the “Developers” mantra ...

It seems like Joel and Ned Batchelder are in bit of a tussle over a hot topic these days: Exceptions. There has been a growing debate between the two over exceptions and error handling in/through code. In my opinion, particularly in context of .NET, exceptions provide a structured and object oriented model for error handling which is of extreme relevance, directly or indirectly, right from the development & testing phase to product marketing & acceptance by customers. Having said that, comments and discussions by two industry experts is enlightening.

BTW, there's a nice article on Ten tips for .NET exceptions at CNET. The article is a bit outdated but a good read.