Error Handling

Years ago I read an article on error handling that stuck with me. I rambled what I could from memory at a coworker earlier today; then I googled around and found a copy of the original article on the Internet Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220223020910/https://www.joyent.com/node-js/production/design/errors

It’s a good read. It’s aimed at Node developers, so some of the details aren’t particularly relevant to others, like details about the Error object, and callbacks versus throwing.¹ My big takeaway is the distinction between operational errors—things we expect to happen, like connection errors, validation errors, and the like—and programmer errors, which are simply bugs.