Ruby raise/rescue vs. throw/catch. tl;dr throw/catch is much faster

bm_throw_raise.rb

require 'benchmark/ips'

Benchmark.ips do |x|
  x.report(:raise_rescue) do
    begin
      raise ArgumentError
    rescue ArgumentError
    end
  end

  x.report(:throw_catch) do
    begin
      catch(:halt) do
        throw(:halt)
      end
    end
  end
  x.compare!
end

# Ruby 2.2.4 on OSX
# Warming up --------------------------------------
#         raise_rescue    58.744k i/100ms
#          throw_catch   157.030k i/100ms
# Calculating -------------------------------------
#         raise_rescue    704.836k (± 6.7%) i/s -      3.525M in   5.023761s
#          throw_catch      2.532M (± 5.3%) i/s -     12.719M in   5.037449s
#
# Comparison:
#          throw_catch:  2532310.2 i/s
#         raise_rescue:   704835.7 i/s - 3.59x slower