It depends on the at-the-time-consequences of the failure. You ask yourself: What happens if/when it fails? If you're in a position of the developer trying to

It depends on the at-the-time-consequences of the failure. You ask yourself: What happens if/when it fails? If you're in a position of the developer trying to get something working reliably, absolutely you need things to fail early and hard. But when something is in the field and in the hands of the user, you don't want things to crash.