Exception as the primary error handling mechanism?

[Chris Rebert]

On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Peng Yu <pengyu.ut at gmail.com> wrote:
> I observe that python library primarily use exception for error
> handling rather than use error code.
>
> In the article API Design Matters by Michi Henning
>
> Communications of the ACM
> Vol. 52 No. 5, Pages 46-56
> 10.1145/1506409.1506424
> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/5/24646-api-design-matters/fulltext
>
> It says "Another popular design flaw—namely, throwing exceptions for
> expected outcomes—also causes inefficiencies because catching and
> handling exceptions is almost always slower than testing a return
> value."
>
> My observation is contradicted to the above statement by Henning. If
> my observation is wrong, please just ignore my question below.
>
> Otherwise, could some python expert explain to me why exception is
> widely used for error handling in python? Is it because the efficiency
> is not the primary goal of python?

Correct; programmer efficiency is a more important goal for Python instead.
Python is ~60-100x slower than C;[1] if someone is worried by the
inefficiency caused by exceptions, then they're using completely the
wrong language.

Cheers,
Chris
--
http://blog.rebertia.com

[1] http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/which-programming-languages-are-fastest.php?gcc=on&python=on&calc=chart