> In Javaland this describes assertions, and the term exception is for operating errors, i.e. problems not necessarily attributable to programmer error
Making matters more confusing in Javaland, Errors are separate from Exceptions, but both are Throwables.
An Error is a subclass of Throwable that indicates serious problems that a reasonable application should not try to catch. Most such errors are abnormal conditions. The ThreadDeath error, though a "normal" condition, is also a subclass of Error because most applications should not try to catch it.