A normal function return is handled directly by the caller, even if the caller decides to completely ignore it. In the case of exceptions it continues to implic

A normal function return is handled directly by the caller, even if the caller decides to completely ignore it. In the case of exceptions it continues to implicitly pop the stack to attempt to find a handler. The explicit vs implicit nature is quite different. I'd also point out that in gcc and clang support nodiscard and warn_unused_result giving a function some ability to force callers to handle returns. Go, rust and even java (thanks to errorprone) have similar guardrails. I think you also need to balance the marginal efficiency wins of not checking for errors on return with the overall robustness of your program. The likelihood that an error condition is properly handled is heavily predicated on your ability to know that it might occur in the first place. In a language where exceptions are common place make this very challenging because they heavily rely on unchecked exceptions. Languages that value error checking have tended to shun exception style in favor of returning option types.