Comment by saghm
19 hours ago
I guess given that it was UB before, the compiler was already allowed to put a system call here if it wanted for some reason
19 hours ago
I guess given that it was UB before, the compiler was already allowed to put a system call here if it wanted for some reason
Not only that, the code was wrong. The specification is quite clear that correct programs don't cause UB to be executed at run time. If your wrong code now produces wrong results, that's because it's wrong. That your compiler allowed you to get away with it for decades is a compiler bug, not a feature.
Do I fully believe all of the above? Not exactly. But compiler authors do. Does it make a really good argument to never use C or C++? Yes. If only we had 50 years of optimization work in any language with better semantics.
Yeah, my slightly more verbose take is that a language that requires you to not ever make any mistakes in order to have a program behave in a predictable way is not a particularly good choice of language if you the ability to pick something else.
The mistake was declaring infinite loops to be UB in the first place.
> That your compiler allowed you to get away with it for decades is a compiler bug
That UB was added in C++11.
That sounds like 1.5 decades to me...
Yes, it was a horrible situation that has been replaced by an only slightly less horrible situation.
I don't totally agree with this. To me, UB is an order of magnitude worse than pretty much anything else, so this is more than "slightly less" horrible. I don't necessarily disagree that this is still horrible, but I also don't write an C++, so I'm mostly just commenting as an outside observer.
Yes, but now it has to. I guess that's better? than UB, maybe.