Start With the End in Mind
Every error handling pattern I've seen fail has one thing in common: it was bolted on after the happy path was done. When you write try/catch as an afterthought, you end up with inconsistent handling, swallowed exceptions, and debugging sessions that make you question your career.
Instead, decide your error strategy before you write the first function. That doesn't mean planning every edge case upfront, but it means agreeing on the shape of errors, who handles them, and how they surface.
The Three Layers of Error Handling
I mentally split error handling into three layers: detection, propagation, and presentation. Each layer has its own job, and mixing them is where things get messy.
