Hacker News Reader

> If you expected the record to be found, the failure of finding it is an exception.

This is not always the case. In fact, for query APIs I do not expect it at all. Sometimes I'm doing something similar to a UPSERT operation with more nuanced behavior, then returning no existing entry on a preceding SELECT query could be the 99% use case.

View on HN

>> If you expected the record to be found, the failure of finding it is an exception.

> This is not always the case. In fact, for query APIs I do not expect it at all.

And, in your case, "if you expected the record to be found" doesn't apply.

If I'm iterating over a list of names/id provided by the APi, and then calling the API for more information each one, then I would expect the record to be found... because the API just told me it exists. In that case, it not being found is an exceptional condition.

Only if you're the only user of that API or these entities are eternal once created. In any application with multiple users it's a normal thing for system state to change between two API calls.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com