Exceptions are a common mean to handle errors. However, they have some drawbacks when it comes to compiler support, safety and traceability. Fortunately, we can leverage Kotlin’s sealed classes to create result objects that solve the mentioned problems. This way, we get great compiler support and the code becomes clean, less error-prone, easy to grasp and predictable.

Java has checked exceptions and is out on a limb. Is there a reason, why other languages like C++, Objective-C, C#, Kotlin, Scala don’t support this concept? What is the problem about checked exceptions and what can we do instead? And most important: What do water wings and checked exceptions have in common? This article gives the answer to all of these questions and shows why unchecked exceptions are the better choice.