both seem equally undesirable to me in all cases where I intend neither. though one also risks undefined behavior, so that is strictly worse. the reason I use

both seem equally undesirable to me in all cases where I intend neither. though one also risks undefined behavior, so that is strictly worse. the reason I use a type system is to make error classes unrepresentable (where possible) or a failure. these are both leaky abstractions in the worst possible manifestation: silent misbehavior at runtime.