> "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation, ... FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
which would permit the GCC steering committee to decide tomorrow that every other statement must be "HAIL SATAN;" or your code won't compile.
Of course, "can" doesn't mean "should," and if they actually did it, it wouldn't say anything particularly deep about the GPL being a bad license, it would merely indicate that the GCC steering committee had become untrustworthy, and that the community should act accordingly.
Undefined behavior is exactly analogous. It was a degree of freedom designed to allow compiler writers to smooth over CPU architecture friction back in a time when the CPU architecture scene was far less settled than it is now. Trust and responsibility were always understood to be necessary components to make it work. The fact that trust can be broken isn't deep, isn't surprising, and isn't a failure of C.
If C compiler writers want to use UB as an excuse to abuse the trust they have been given, that's on them. I am moving away from C, for many reasons, but the UB-related reason has very little to do with UB being inherently evil and very much to do with the fact that it seems to be placed in increasingly irresponsible hands.
> "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation, ... FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
which would permit the GCC steering committee to decide tomorrow that every other statement must be "HAIL SATAN;" or your code won't compile.
Of course, "can" doesn't mean "should," and if they actually did it, it wouldn't say anything particularly deep about the GPL being a bad license, it would merely indicate that the GCC steering committee had become untrustworthy, and that the community should act accordingly.
Undefined behavior is exactly analogous. It was a degree of freedom designed to allow compiler writers to smooth over CPU architecture friction back in a time when the CPU architecture scene was far less settled than it is now. Trust and responsibility were always understood to be necessary components to make it work. The fact that trust can be broken isn't deep, isn't surprising, and isn't a failure of C.
If C compiler writers want to use UB as an excuse to abuse the trust they have been given, that's on them. I am moving away from C, for many reasons, but the UB-related reason has very little to do with UB being inherently evil and very much to do with the fact that it seems to be placed in increasingly irresponsible hands.