Todd Biske wrote: > I tend to agree with the popular opinion, although I wouldn't use the > terms system exception and application exception. An exception, > regardless of the adjective before it, should represent something > abnormal (not necessarily unexpected though). In your example, as > you rightly point out, there are days off during the baseball > season. Therefore, a request for the score on a day when there is no > game should not be considered abnormal. Interestingly, however, a > request for the score in January would be.
I disagree. For uniformity of API response, out of season and day off should be the same return type. Creating more variations for the client to deal with is not always a good thing. And, I would throw an exception to signal that it is not proper to make that request/call at that time. A score is a score! If you can't return a score that is meaningful, then throw an exception. Demanding that the application treat a score of 0 or -1 special is silly. Gregg Wonderly
