I'd like know what people think about using RAISERROR in stored procedures to pass back user messages (i.e. business related messages, not error messages) to the application.
Some of the senior developers in my firm have been using this method and catching the SqlException in our C# code to pick up the messages and display them to the user. I am not happy with this method and would like to know how other people deal with these types of user messages from stored procs.
I've done this, but it was usually to pass along business "error" messages, essentially a data configuration had to be in place that couldn't be enforced with standard FK constraints for whatever reason.
If they are actually "errors", I don't have much of a problem with it. If it's inserting a record and using RAISERROR to throw ("You have successfully registered for XYZ!"), then you've got a problem. If that was the case, I'd probably come up with a team/department/company development standard for using out parameters.