[pagghiu]

You can definitively use C++ in exception free way. I've been working on multiple Exception free codebases for work.

One large open source project that is using Exception free C++ is SerenityOS for example https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity

The best way to write proper exception free C++ is not to use the C++ Standard Library.

[reactordev]

No, instead of using std::exception, serenity has ErrorOr template. C’mon, that’s basically the same thing. Whatever you want to call it, ErrorOr, OptionalWithError, Exception, you have branching code paths that deal with null/undefined conditions vs your known happy path. Exceptions / Error Handling / it’s all the same class of crap.

Only in C++ land do developers delusion themselves into thinking their way isn’t this way. That exception free means just simply not doing try/catch. jandrewrogers made a good argument below about memory safety and allocations in regards to mission-critical code but even in that scenario, underlying memory can be manipulated by MITM or other conditions that could cause corruption or segfaults in allocator pages.

[pagghiu]

> No, instead of using std::exception, serenity has ErrorOr template. C’mon, that’s basically the same thing.

I think that handling errors with ErrorOr<T,E> or similar techniques (I use something similar too) is very different from exception handling.

My main problems with exception handling are:

1. It's not zero-overhead (brings in RTTI often) 2. You can't know if a function throws something by looking at its signature 3. You don't know what types exceptions a function can throw 4. It doesn't force users to handle errors that can happen, leading tomore "happy path" style code

Something like ErrorOr or similar with [[nodiscard]] ticks all the above 4 points.

[jpc0]

> C’mon, that’s basically the same thing

I'm not going to talk about errorOr specifically because I don't know how it's implemented but rather your premise.

Exceptions are the modern goto, the try catch may be in the caller function. Or it could be 3 inherented classes away (this is hyperbole, I'm not sure if it would actually work) with so much indirection it would be impossible to follow the code flow other than to step in a debugger. So in fact it's worse than a goto since at least a goto had a label.

I'm not for or against exceptions just pointing out that a result or optional type is in no way at all similar to an exception.

On another point C++ exceptions are notoriously inefficient as well. There ware valid reasons to want to be exception free even from a code style perspective.