Last week I replied to a post about exceptions, it made me think those programming .Net daily take for granted the etiquette of using Exceptions. So I thought I would share some of my thoughts… well it is a sort of a rules’ish list.

• Exceptions can be expensive, so avoid using them for normal conditions
• Only catch the exceptions you can handle
• Don’t hide/swallow exceptions
• Don’t catch System.Exception as will also catch unmanaged exceptions such as System.Runtime.InteropServices.SEHException
• Consider using your own custom exceptions or derive them from similar ones
• Remember inner exceptions when processing an exception
  • API’s such as MethodInfo.Invoke throw TargetInvocationException which contains the real exception
• Use the Exception suffix on your custom exception
• Consider using Microsoft’s StyleCop to point out common issues
• Avoid using System.ApplicationException if you want to use the code in the Silverlight CLR
• Remember to serialize your own exception types
• Use xml comment docs for the exceptions a method raises… it helps intellisense..

I suspect I might have missed something.. so feel free to comment..