* }
   *
   * The alternative natural refactorings into void or Exception-returning methods are much slower.
   * This is a big deal - we're talking factors of 2-8 in microbenchmarks, not just 10-20%. (This is
   * a hotspot optimizer bug, which should be fixed, but that's a separate, big project).
   *
   * The coding pattern above is heavily used in java.util, e.g. in ArrayList. There is a