> Exceptions do not conform to C++'s "zero-overhead" principle. That's why numerous large organizations from NASA to the Dept. of Defense to Google decree that C++ exceptions must not be used.

I don't know about NASA's case, but Google's style guide forbids exceptions only for legacy reasons. In fact it praises them:

"On their face, the benefits of using exceptions outweigh the costs, especially in new projects. However, for existing code, the introduction of exceptions has implications on all dependent code. ... Because most existing C++ code at Google is not prepared to deal with exceptions, it is comparatively difficult to adopt new code that generates exceptions."

Since I'm not working on Google's old code base I do use exceptions.