why panic(9) ?

[Greg Roberts]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 15:11, David DEMELIER <demelier.david at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm just guessing why current BSD panic() when a problem occurs, all
> modern operating systems solve the problem instead of crashing
> suddently and corrupting all your data without saving your work.
>
> Yes, why this function exists? There is no way to solve a problem
> without panic'ing? Is panic really needed? Imagine someone working on
> something really important and his computer just panic, his work not
> saved everybody shout at him in the corporation. He lose his job, his
> wife, his dog, everything is wrong, just because of a panic() !
>

This feature ensures we have country music hits for the life of the
operating system.

Greg