Unfortunately putting a try/catch around a 3p lib doesn't actually capture exceptions generated by those libs (unless they occur before any async operations, wh

Unfortunately putting a try/catch around a 3p lib doesn't actually capture exceptions generated by those libs (unless they occur before any async operations, which I would say is the exception rather than the rule). You're right that you have to manage exceptions, which is difficult. The biggest problem I've had with Node is the runtime exceptions that crash the entire process because they go uncaught. To deal with that, I have the server automatically restart on failure - far from an ideal scenario of error recovery (and what I think you're referring to when you talk about sacrificing error safety).