[b-zee]

Definitely thought-provoking. A few responses here on HN disagree with calling this a bug, so maybe the user owns the error. This is all related to what kind of contract we have in mind when creating and using such a program.

If `puts` were to be used for debug messages, it might be right not to fail so as to not disturb the rest of the program. If the primary purpose is to greet the world, then we might expect it to signal the failure. But each creator or user might have their own expected behaviors.

If a user expects different behavior, then perhaps it is a feature request:

> There's no difference between a bug and a feature request from the user's perspective. (https://blog.codinghorror.com/thats-not-a-bug-its-a-feature-...)

The question is how the behavior can be made more explicit. I think it's a reasonable default to make programs fail often and early. If some failure can be safely ignored, it can always be implemented as an (explicit) feature.