[bcoates]

Iterator invalidation is a giant hassle, although it's easier to catch with debug or safety-mode libraries. I kind of got dragged into a derail ranting about the bizarre strawmen above.

My core point is that the OP has a theory about there being a school of C programmers that intentionally or unintentionally invoke undefined behavior and expect the compiler to do the right thing. He's doing a pretty good job of backing it up, although I'm not sure I understand what exactly he's proposing to do about it.

... And then he just kind of throws C++ in for the ride, presumably on the argument that C++ is just like C with even more cases for undefined behavior. But that's not correct because he's making both a technical and a cultural argument. C++ is technologically (mostly) a superset of C, the culture is completely different to the extent that Linus famously argued that the main advantage of using C is that it keeps all the C++ programmers out. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/5791...

Of the widely fragmented C++ user base, there are multiple, popular methods of development that encourage true high-level development were you are encouraged to target your code to the abstract/portable machine that the standard uses and not your personal guess of how the compiler should work and avoids doing things that require inordinate care to get right.

Again, C++ is full of practical problems, the kind of undefined behavior cases the OP worries about don't really rank up there among them.