[nknighthb]

Define "fatal". Go-the-language and the standard library sometimes panic in situations that are bad but non-fatal for a long-running server process.

I have no issue with an argument that a panic making it out of a library meant for general external use is usually a bad thing -- that's not a "reasonable use of exceptions".

But my own applications are deliberately structured so that most of the outer layers can safely assume most operations will just work, as inner layers, to which interaction with external libraries is largely confined, will log.Panic() if they don't. It's the right choice 90% or more of the time, and leaves us with shorter, cleaner code.

In any case, I severely dislike arguments based on whether something is "idiomatic" or not. It's one thing when you're talking about loops and switches, and something else entirely when you hit someone over the head with it on architectural matters, especially in a language this young.