>This is driven by programmers' insatiable thirst for performance. Compiler writers are constantly judged on benchmarks, and the only way to squeeze that last f

>This is driven by programmers' insatiable thirst for performance. Compiler writers are constantly judged on benchmarks, and the only way to squeeze that last flop out of a piece of code is to take the specification to its extreme. Ironically, strict aliasing rule (which is one of the most common causes of UB) makes writing fast programs much harder, because it forbids type punning (except via memcpy or unions). BTW, according to WG14 mailings and minutes, the C committee is considering either relaxing it or creating a standard way to suppress it in C2X. I can't wait for it.