title: Is returning null after exception is caught bad design
body: <p>I always come across the same problem that when an exception is caught in a function that has a non-void return value I don't know what to return. The following code snippet illustrates my problem.</p>
  
  <pre><code>public Object getObject(){
    try{
      ...
      return object;
    }
    catch(Exception e){
      //I have to return something here but what??
      return null; // is this a bad design??
    }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So my questions are:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Is return null bad design?</li>
  <li>If so what is seen as a cleaner solution??</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>thanks.</p>