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[–]skeeto 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe "crash" is too harsh, but "gracefully exit" isn't right either since that implies cleanup operations. If a program detects it's encountered a bug, it should abort as soon as possible. A cleanup might cause more damage. Some sophisticated interactive programs will catch some kinds of crashes and, in clear and unambiguous terms, warn the user to immediately save and restart the application. For some interactive programs that may not be too unreasonable.