Re: Real life cost of using exceptions for control flow?

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From: Jon Skeet [C# MVP] (skeet_at_pobox.com)
Date: 06/11/04

  • Next message: Jerry Pisk: "Re: Real life cost of using exceptions for control flow?" 
    Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 21:23:00 +0100

    Frank Hileman <frankhil@no.spamming.prodigesoftware.com> wrote:
    > This test cannot be generalized to all exception performance problems. We
    > found exceptions thrown by System.Drawing during a display pass caused such
    > a dramatic slow-down that we wrote elaborate code to avoid exceptions. It
    > could be that exceptions thrown by unmanaged code wrappers are unusually
    > slow. In general, the only way to determine the extent of the problem is to
    > test on your own code.
    >
    > This is why the .NET design guidelines recommend avoiding exceptions for
    > expected or common error conditions. Throwing exceptions during drawing
    > operations, for example, should never be acceptable, since it causes so many
    > problems. For us, the difference was a smooth display, versus an unusable
    > display.

    Well, I'm not sure that's really the reason - I suspect it's really
    because using exceptions for normal control flow makes code harder to
    follow. Performance is an issue, but I don't think it's the main one.

    Certainly 200 exceptions an hour isn't going to affect most
    applications at all. 

    -- 
Jon Skeet - <skeet@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too
  • Next message: Jerry Pisk: "Re: Real life cost of using exceptions for control flow?"

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