Brendan Tompkins [MVP]

I read your book "Foundations of Programming". It is great. Thank you!

I found sometimes, it is hard to decide to throw an exception or return null in order to show friendly information to client, like "Please try it again!".

I hope it doesn't bother you too much.

For example, one client register, after he clicked submit button, database didn't save his information and throw an exception.

public Hashtable Save(Cleintinfo)

{

try{

 //database options

}

catch(customerException ex)

{

  //log error

 //return null or throw customerException

}

catch(Exception ex)

{

 //log error

 //return null or throw Exception

}

}

My gut feeling says you ought to throw an exception must of the time. If for no other reason than you can communicate a lot more information in an exception than just returning null (like what exactly the user didn't do correctly). If you look at the learning application (codebetter.com/.../foundations-of-programming-learning-application.aspx) you'll see how I dealth with this kinda thing.