CQ Haiku: JCR vs. Sling

Adapt to Node like
Assembly inside Java
Use Sling API

Quite often I see code, especially from less experience developers, with something like this:

Node node = resource.adaptTo(Node.class);
String property = null;
try{
    property = node.getProperty("myProperty").getString();
} catch (RepositoryException re){
    log.error("Exception accessing myProperty", re);
}

Or even scarier, there may be just a global exception handler for the particular method. Either way, this code is a lot more fragile than it needs to be. If the property myProperty does not exist this can throw a PathNotFoundException or if there's any other problem it will throw a RepositoryException. You also have to handle multiple null checks and ensuring the property value is the correct type.

The Sling API on the other hand, handles most relevant exceptions by doing things like allowing default values or returning null if no value exists for a particular property. Because of this it is also significantly more concise:

ValueMap properties = resource.adaptTo(ValueMap.class);
String property = properties.get("myProperty", String.class);

In summary, unless you need the features available in the JCR API, sticking with the Sling API will make your code more consise and less fragile.