[erlang-questions] Idiomatically handling multiple validation checks

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

Joe Duffy of Microsoft gave a talk about systems programming in C#.
(He worked on a project that built an operating system + utilities
in C#.)  The talk is at 
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/csharp-systems-programming?utm_campaign=rightbar_v2&utm_source=infoq&utm_medium=presentations_link&utm_content=link_text

He had some interesting things to say about exceptions and errors.

* Exceptions are meant for recoverable errors;
   but many errors are not recoverable!
* A bug is an error the programmer didn't expect;
   a recoverable error is an expected condition,
   resulting from programmatic data validation.
* Treating bugs and recoverable errors homogeneously
   creates reliability problems.
* If you’re going to fail, do it fast.
* Exceptions [can] delay the inevitable and invite[] abuse.
* Fail-fast ensures bugs are caught promptly before they
   can do more damage.
* In [their] experience, 1:10 ratio of recoverable errors
   (exceptions) to bugs (fail-fast).

Apart from that, I really liked zxq9's response.