Thread: try catch needed? Or recommended?

The general rule is that, if you can avoid a try-catch using checks (ifs etc.) before an exception would be thrown, do it. Exceptions do have an additional cost to them when compared with pre-checks. However, sometimes Exceptions are unavoidable. When defining APis, exceptions help enforce the rules of that API. As no API can predict every situation their library will be put through, exceptions are added into method signatures to tell clients, if they break the rules, I will not accept it and I will throw an error/exception.

Ask yourself, should the performance for every client take a hit by doing all these checks on the off chance that a client makes a mistake? or should they leave that stuff the the developer? the latter makes more sense.