As I've mentioned earlier I filed a feature request on sun's developer network for allowing checked exception to be disabled. Unfortunately, they recently decided that this was not a big enough problem that it was worth the effort to solve it. To quote the evaluation:

The use cases against having to declare checked exceptions do not justify a change of this magnitude, at present.

Sadly, the evaluation completely misses the point. I have no problem with declaring exceptions when appropriate -- it's verbose but most everything is in Java and I've learned to live with that. Actually, I often declare unchecked exceptions even though I don't have to because that can be really useful as documentation. What I do have a problem with is that checked exceptions often force you to choose between breaking encapsulation or handling exceptions locally, which is in many case the wrong place to handle them.need th

What it comes down to, really, is a matter of choice: some people want to be able to choose for themselves the best place to handle exceptions. Others believe that programmers can't be trusted to make this decision. Me, I'm pro choice.