And those optimizations apply regardless of whether the function checks the parameter internally and panics on failure, or if you check the parameter before calling the function and unwrap the function result. Again, there is no difference. There's really no need to argue about this. Feel free to godbolt it.

You're right.

https://godbolt.org/z/cfr8MEG6j https://godbolt.org/z/7crr4n66Y

I suppose I'm used to C/C++ compilers not going as far down the optimization rabbit hole as Rust seems to, where they often miss more complex optimizations like this in sufficiently advanced wrapper types etc.