Lectures

In this article, we break down the myths and reality of higher education: why a diploma does not guarantee success, how the role of universities is changing in today’s world, why practice matters more than theory, and what you actually need for professional growth. This material is for those who want to learn efficiently and be in demand as a specialist.

We break down how compile-time errors differ from runtime errors, why an exception is not “just another if”, but a mechanism for emergency changes to the control flow. We look at typical causes ( NumberFormatException, ArithmeticException, ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException), the top of the hierarchy Throwable → Exception/ Error, learn to read the exception name and the first lines of the stack trace, and, using the console app BudgetBuddy as an example, observe where exactly execution “breaks”.

We break down when Kotlin actually needs try / catch: why toIntOrNull() does not always help, how to catch specific exceptions ( NumberFormatException, ArithmeticException), how to write a minimal try, use try as an expression, and build resilient input using the pattern “catch → explain → continue”.

We will break down two key Kotlin error-handling tools: the finally block for “cleanup” that runs no matter what (even with return and even when an exception occurs), and the throw keyword for explicitly throwing exceptions (for example, IllegalArgumentException). We will also discuss the Nothing type and the pattern with the Elvis operator ?:, and at the end we will assemble a mini-app with input validation and guaranteed finalization via try/ catch/ finally.

We break down what a stack trace is in Kotlin/JVM and how to quickly extract answers from the “red text” to the questions “what happened” (the exception type, like NumberFormatException) and “where it happened” (file and line File.kt:NN). In practice, using a mini app ExpenseBuddy, we learn how to set a breakpoint before a risky line, use Step Over/ Step Into, inspect Variables and the live Call Stack, and finally we lock in the typical mistakes in reading a trace and debugging.

We break down how Kotlin chooses a catch handler (the first matching one from top to bottom), why the order of blocks is critical because of the exception hierarchy, how to choose a reasonable handling “granularity”, and how not to turn try/ catch into a trash container. In practice, we catch NumberFormatException, ArithmeticException, ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException, refactor a large try into narrower blocks, and discuss common mistakes.

A lecture about a typical workday of a developer and how the task workflow is usually set up: from tracking in JIRA to commits in Git and reviews via Pull Request.