[user249]

When I was learning Rust, unwrap felt like cheating

[grumpyprole]

It is! :) Perhaps the name could have made it more obvious: e.g. "get_or_fail"

[scotty79]

It could be named .ordie() like php idiom from olden times.

[yakubin]

I associate it more with Perl. A quick search reveals Perl to be older than PHP by 7 years, so I'd guess it's a Perl idiom borrowed by PHP.