Let's say Java had no checked exceptions. I could just write IO code without doing a try since no one is forcing me to check anything.
But let's go further. Let's say I have an API x(). This API accesses my database as part of a larger transaction.
I invoke x() and it fails with an SQLException which is declared. I can revert the transaction or I can choose to retry x(). The checked exception notifies me that there's an important decision I need to make at this point, cleanup is one option but in some cases there are more. Furthermore, cleanup isn't always enough. In a case of an IOException I'd often want to notify the user e.g. if the disk is out of space I want to show an error message somewhere...
But let's go further. Let's say I have an API x(). This API accesses my database as part of a larger transaction.
I invoke x() and it fails with an SQLException which is declared. I can revert the transaction or I can choose to retry x(). The checked exception notifies me that there's an important decision I need to make at this point, cleanup is one option but in some cases there are more. Furthermore, cleanup isn't always enough. In a case of an IOException I'd often want to notify the user e.g. if the disk is out of space I want to show an error message somewhere...