An exception does not automatically mean the program crashes. It only crashes if the exception is not caught.

In low-latency systems, exceptions are generally avoided because they:

• Introduce latency overhead: when an exception is thrown, the runtime must unwind the stack i.e. walking back through active function calls and destroying local objects. This process takes time.

• Create unpredictable control flow: exceptions can propagate across multiple layers before being caught, making the logic harder to follow.

So instead of doing this:

try {
    place_order();
}
catch (const NetworkError& e) {
    retry();
}

Prefer:

std::optional<OrderId> place_order(); // NOT a pointer

auto order_id = place_order();
if (!order_id) {
    retry();
}