title: Are lots of exceptions bad design in Java?
body: <p>I am currently wrapping a C Library in Java, making it easier to use and work within OO-Programming. The C Library uses error codes (int return value) and Out-Parameter for data manipulation. I am not necessarily a fan of error codes, so I would like to create some custom Exception classes that I can throw if my library detects an error code other than "success".</p>
  
  <p>The only problem is that the amount of Exceptions that might be raised by every single method is very high (There are some error codes that can be returned from every C library function, like "Device_Not_Connected"). It has been a while since I last programmed in Java, so, I really don't know what the situation is with Exceptions in Java.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Are methods that throw a lot of different exceptions bad design?</li>
  <li>Do I have to handle the exceptions, or is there a way of simply ignoring it?</li>
  <li>If I can ignore an exception, does it bubble up the call tree (like in Python for example)?</li>
  <li>Are there any alternatives to exceptions in Java besides error codes and no-ops?</li>
  </ol>