I would argue that panicking very much makes it somebody else's immediate problem. By this logic, it kind of seems like no function should ever return errors a

I would argue that panicking very much makes it somebody else's immediate problem. By this logic, it kind of seems like no function should ever return errors at all -- handle the situation or panic, right? Sure, kicking the ball up the chain out of laziness is, well, laziness. But plenty of times, it's done out of the knowledge (or at least hope) that somebody up the chain has a better idea of how to handle the situation than you do.