Rethinking the SlingException

We should define the SlingException as a RuntimeException and use it as the base class for all exceptions defined in the Sling API.

Status: DRAFT work in progress
Created: 23. December 2007
Author: fmeschbe

Inspired by Barry Ruzek's article Effective Java Exceptions, I went out to revisit the exceptions we have defined in the Sling API. This is what I came out with:

We have 4 Exceptions, all of which are checked exceptions
The SlingException is a base exception and is declared almost everywhere
The HttpStatusCodeException is an IOException not a SlingException and is not declared to be thrown anywhere
We have to documented possibilities of throwing a runtime exception: The AccessControlException possibly thrown when accessing a resource through the ResourceResolver.

Thinking about these (checked) Exceptions, I propose to change this situation as follows:

The SlingException is a RuntimeException and is used as the base exception for all exceptions defined by the Sling API.