[petergeoghegan]

> It's not taken seriously because it shouldn't be taken seriously

I really don't know what you're arguing against. I never questioned the general usefulness of an abstract machine. I merely pointed out that a large amount of important C code exists that is in tension with the idea that of an all important abstract machine. This is an empirical fact. Is it not?

You are free to interpret this body of C code as "not true ISO C", I suppose. Kind of like how the C standard is free to remove integer overflow checks in the presence of undefined behavior.