Panics in Rust are for logic errors that can't be meaningfully recovered from. You can easily convert an error state into a panic, by using .unwrap() or .expect(), or pass the error back to the caller via the '?' syntax. Rust does have a "recover"-like facility that can catch a panic, but it's intended for exceptional use; it also has no effect when panics are configured (at the whole-program level) to abort the program immediately.