Java’s Exceptions are an extremely powerful way to figure out what went wrong. Too bad many Java programmers go out of their way to hide what went wrong from their fellow developers.

If you’ve got to recast an exception:

try {
    doThing();
}
catch (RandomLocalException e) {
    throw new OuterException("Some mysterious message");
}

At least have the decency to write

try {
    doThing();
}
catch (RandomLocalException e) {
    OuterException oute = new OuterException("Some mysterious message");
    oute.initCause(e);
    throw oute;
}

That way I don’t have to chase down the rabbit hole that is doThing() to find out why it barfed.