Why NullPointerException is a runtime exception and RemoteException not?

Question

A possible reason because a NullPointerException is a runtime exception is because every method can throw it, so every method would need to have a "throws NullPointerException", and would be ugly. But this happens with RemoteException.

And a possible reason because RemoteException is not a runtime exception, is to tell it client to treat the exception. But every method in a remote environment need throws it, so there is no difference of throwing NullPointerException.

Speculations? Was I clear?

Answer 1

The way I understand it is:

• RuntimeExceptions are thrown for things that were preventable.
• Exceptions are thrown for things that were unpreventable but recoverable
• Errors are thrown for things that were unpreventable and unrecoverable.

For example, NullPointerExceptions can always be avoided and are therefore unchecked exceptions. A RemoteException could occur when there is a network failure, which cannot be reasonably prevented before the method call and therefore is checked.