[yason]

The only point you can conclude out of these discussions, especially in an interview, that it doesn't matter what the answer happens to be on $CC and $ARCH but you wouldn't want anyone to write stuff like that in the first place.

Failing to recognize the dangers would be an instant fail; knowing that something reeks of undefined behaviour, or even potential UB, is enough: you just write out explicitly what you want and skip the mind games.