Error handling is the tedious process of trying to anticipate and handle every possible way your code could blow up, usually through a bunch of try/catch blocks that make your beautiful code look like a Rube Goldberg machine. It's like playing whack-a-mole with exceptions, except the moles are bugs and instead of a mallet, you have a keyboard and a growing sense of existential dread.

How to use it in a sentence

1. "I spent all day implementing error handling for the new feature, because apparently users don't appreciate it when the app crashes every time they sneeze."

2. "Yeah, I'll get to that refactoring task right after I finish this error handling code—I just need to figure out how to catch the 'user is a total klutz' exception."

If you actually want to learn more...

• Martin Fowler discusses how error handling can lead to non-deterministic tests and suggests using a clock stub to ensure predictable results. Eradicating Non-Determinism in Tests

• Proper resource management is crucial for avoiding resource leaks that can cause random test failures. Fowler recommends using resource pools and limiting their size to catch issues early. Resource Leaks

• While not directly related to error handling, this list of tags from Martin Fowler's blog in 2019 might lead you down an interesting rabbit hole of software development topics. Tags for the Year 2019

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