Idiomatic error handling in Clojure

Question

When I put on my C hat, I think that maybe idiomatic Clojure just does the simple thing and checks return values.

When I put on my Java hat (reluctantly, I must add), I think to myself that since Clojure runs on the JVM the natural way must be to use JVM exceptions.

When I put on my functional hat, I'm thinking that there must be some sort of monadic construction or threading macro that can handle errors in a composable way.

So what's the idiomatic way to handle errors in a Clojure program?

Answer 1

Clojure error handling is generally JVM exception (unchecked) oriented.

Slingshot makes using exceptions more pleasant by allowing, for example, destructuring on thrown exception values.

For an alternative that allows erlang-style error handling you should look at dire. This blog post gives a good overview of the rational for dire as well as an overview of Clojure error handling mechanisms and drawbacks.