panic wrapper functions

common/bit_array.go

@@ -209,7 +209,7 @@ func (bA *BitArray) PickRandom() (int, bool) {
 						return 64*elemIdx + bitIdx, true
 					}
 				}
-				panic("should not happen")
+				PanicSanity("should not happen")
 			}
 		} else {
 			// Special case for last elem, to ignore straggler bits

common/errors.go

@@ -16,3 +16,30 @@ func (se StackError) String() string {
 func (se StackError) Error() string {
 	return se.String()
 }
+
+//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+// panic wrappers
+
+// A panic resulting from a sanity check means there is a programmer error
+// and some gaurantee is not satisfied.
+func PanicSanity(v interface{}) {
+	panic(Fmt("Paniced on a Sanity Check: %v", v))
+}
+
+// A panic here means something has gone horribly wrong, in the form of data corruption or
+// failure of the operating system. In a correct/healthy system, these should never fire.
+// If they do, it's indicative of a much more serious problem.
+func PanicCrisis(v interface{}) {
+	panic(Fmt("Paniced on a Crisis: %v", v))
+}
+
+// Indicates a failure of consensus. Someone was malicious or something has
+// gone horribly wrong. These should really boot us into an "emergency-recover" mode
+func PanicConsensus(v interface{}) {
+	panic(Fmt("Paniced on a Consensus Failure: %v", v))
+}
+
+// For those times when we're not sure if we should panic
+func PanicQ(v interface{}) {
+	panic(Fmt("Paniced questionably: %v", v))
+}

common/random.go

@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@ func CRandBytes(numBytes int) []byte {
 	b := make([]byte, numBytes)
 	_, err := crand.Read(b)
 	if err != nil {
-		panic(err)
+		PanicCrisis(err)
 	}
 	return b
 }