Error Handling Patterns

Error handling is not just “try/catch.” It’s part of your design: where do errors belong, who is responsible for recovery, and how do you keep failures observable?

This section covers a few idiomatic Clojure patterns: throwing exceptions with structured data (ex-info / ex-data), returning explicit error values where flows are clearer, and keeping recovery logic at system boundaries.

For Java engineers, the shift is often moving from “exception types as control flow” toward “errors as data plus explicit boundaries.”

In this section

• Pure Functions and Error Handling in Clojure
  Explore how pure functions in Clojure handle errors by returning values that represent failure states, such as nil, :error, or custom error types, and compare with Java's approach.
• Error Handling with the Either Monad and `maybe` Pattern in Clojure
  Explore the Either Monad and `maybe` Pattern for effective error handling in Clojure, providing a functional alternative to exceptions.
• Practical Applications of Error Handling Patterns in Clojure
  Explore robust error handling in Clojure using functional patterns, enhancing composability and reducing reliance on try-catch blocks.