I see this used in "unattended programs that do Really Important Thing$$$$." When you absolutely know that the program should not encounter the slightest hiccup, such that you want the program to die when and if it does so. There is no "goodness vs. badness" to this, I think. It's simply another Perl feature that is there if you need it, and perhaps unknown to you if you don't (yet). Perl, being a very pragmatic tool, is loaded with features like that.