> Here is the rule: if a user can trigger an error condition by using the linker in a wrong way, the linker should print out a proper error message. However, if the binary of an input file is corrupted, it is OK for the linker to simply crash.

One of the most useful ideas in developing reasonably complex systems that I encountered is treating different types of errors differently. There's a place for both panics/exceptions on one hand result monads/error messages on another.