Quoth the Java Virtual Machine Specification:
This specification cannot predict where internal errors or resource
limitations may be encountered and does not mandate precisely when
they can be reported. Thus, any of theVirtualMachineErrorsubclasses
defined below may be thrown at any time during the operation of the
Java virtual machine:
In Java therefore no exception guarantees can be made with respect to VirtualMachineError exceptions. All exception guarantees must be subject to the qualification “… but not if a VirtualMachineError is thrown”. This is one of the ways in which Java is different from C++.
This also suggests that there is not much point in catching a VirtualMachineError exception, because the program is in an undefined state if one has been thrown. That unfortunately includes OutOfMemoryError exceptions. Unfortunate, because if a program has several independent tasks to perform (for example, a web server), if one task fails because it needs too much memory, we might want to continue with the other tasks.